Rodrigo Duterte's arrest could be telling blow in the Philippines' dynastic feud
Source: The Guardian
Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest could be telling blow in the Philippines’ dynastic feud
Former president was surrendered to The Hague amid a row between his family and that of the current president
Rebecca Ratcliffe
South-east Asia correspondent
Wed 12 Mar 2025 16.04 GMT
Last modified on Wed 12 Mar 2025 16.06 GMT
Few expected things to move so quickly. Supporters of the Philippines’ former president Rodrigo Duterte barely had time to protest before he was jetted off to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity in relation to his country’s so-called “war on drugs”. According to activists, this bloody crackdown has seen as many as 30,000 people killed since 2016.
The charges brought against the former leader are the culmination of years of work by activists, lawyers and victims, who documented abuses committed under his government, often at great personal risk. But Duterte arguably would not have been surrendered to The Hague if it weren’t for his family’s dramatic feud with that of Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the current president.
The two families were once allies. Marcos Jr ran on a joint ticket with Duterte’s eldest daughter – Sara Duterte, now the vice-president – in the 2022 election, winning a landslide victory. At the time, Marcos Jr, who capitalised on the popularity of the Duterte name, was careful not to criticise Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, and promised not to cooperate with the international criminal court’s continuing investigation.
But the Duterte-Marcos marriage of convenience descended into a bitter dispute, with Sara Duterte launching scathing attacks on the president, even threatening to dig up the remains of his late father, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr, and throw them into the sea.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/12/rodrigo-dutertes-arrest-could-be-telling-blow-in-the-philippines-dynastic-feud
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