It was easy on his 80th birthday, Rodrigo Duterte, a man who used to swear his country by a bloody anti-drug and crime campaign, found himself moving and in custody.
The former President was met by the Philippines police when he arrived at Manila in a flight from Hong Kong, where he supported his candidates in the future in Midcino.
The better interaction for his arrest from the International Criminal Court (ICC) is, it has been done in the hands of the Philippines, which moves it easy to implement it.
A weak look Mr Duterte, walked with a stick, moved to the Air Force base inside the airport perimeter. A chartered jet quickly prepared to bring him to the ICC in The Hague.
How did it happen? How is someone strong and popular, often called “the Trump of Asia”, so low?
In vain, his lawyers and family members protested that the arrest had no legal basis and complained that the weak health of Duterte was neglected.
Meanwhile, Mr. Duterte shaped the alliance with the Marcos family – the children of the degraded dictator Ferdinand Marcos who had been working for a political comfack. Mr Duterte will never run 2022 elections, but his son Sarah, mayor in the southern town of Davao, also popular and a strong contender to replace him.
However, Ferdinand’s son Bongbong, who was in politics of all his life, was also well placed to win and well funded.
The two families struck an agreement. They will help to get Bongbong in the presidency and Sara of the vice-president, the mentality that comes to the next election of 2028, he will come over to Marcos.
It works. Both won their positions in a wide margin. Mr. Duterte expects his alliance to protect him from any blowback to his controversial presidency once he has no power.
The worst threat to him is an ICC investigation of his innovation for thousands of killings he has ordered during the year of Davao town from 2011.
Mr. Duterte asked the Philippines from the ICC jurisdiction in 2019, but the prosecutors argued that they had a command to view the crimes before, and launched a formal investigation of 2021. However, his government did not work with ICC.
That position has changed after the sudden breakdown of the Duterte-Marcos. The ropes of their relationships appear from the first administration days, when Sara Duterte’s request was given control over the power of defense ministry and given him to the ministry of education.
President Marcos also removed himself from mercurial communities to his or her previous, healing the fences with the US, standing in China’s contributions to drug dealers.
In the end, these are the two ambitious, hungry families who seek to reign in the politics of the Filipino, and do not have enough power for them to share. Relationships reached a nadir last year Sara Duterte announced that he hired a murderer to kill President Marcos, there must happen to him.
Last year, the lower house of Congress, controlled by mercos loyistsists, filed a petition to impeach MS Duterte. That test should occur in senate later.
If he was impeached, under the Constitution, he was prohibited from holding high political office, killing long-term ambitions in the rule of dutertes yet.
President Marcos now appears to have moved badly neutralize his primary political opponent. But his strategy is not free of danger. Dutertes remain popular in most of the country, and can move protests against prosecution of former president.
Sara Duterte has released a statement that accuses the government to surrender his father to “foreign powers” and violation of Philippine sovereignty.
An early support of support that both families are exploited may be middle of May elections.
In his comments of reporters after the plane carrying his predecessor from Manila, President Marcos forced the country’s commitments in the Interpol, which gave the ICC. But he was with the fact that it was an ICC warrant that he was imposed, given many Filipinos to ask what ICC remit is left in its jurisdiction.
This is also no risk for ICC. The court is an institution mentioned these days, which Trump Administration who threatens to arrest the leading officials, and some countries ready to leave the US, and some countries that are willing to remove the US. The acquisition of former President Duterte in Hague may be as good as a high profile success.
But there is a warning, from China – not recognized by the ICC and now loggerheads with the Philippines – not in ICC cases. This is a clearly mentioned in the fact that this case, which is about accountability for severe international crimes, ends with playing a decisive part of two opponent political forces.