March 13, 2025 • 15 mins
Three years after he left office, the former President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte has been detained in the Netherlands. Duterte was arrested earlier this week on charges of crimes against humanity, based on his deadly “war on drugs”. In today’s podcast, we’ll explain how a 79-year-old retired world leader has ended up facing trial at the International Criminal Court, and the case against him.
Hosts: Zara Seidler and Emma Gillespie
Producer: Orla Maher
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the Dailia.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is the Dailias.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily Os. It's Friday,
the fourteenth of March. I'm zara, i'm emma. Earlier this week,
the former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo de Turte, was
arrested at an airport after arriving back into the Philippines.
This comes after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant
for his arrest. Duturte initiated a sweeping crackdown on drug
(00:37):
use and trafficking in the Southeast Asian country while in power,
and now ICC prosecutors alleged the crime against humanity of
murder has been committed, as well as things like torture,
sexual violence, and enforced disappearance.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Okay, so Zara, this story really took me via surprise
this week. I'm sure some of our listeners may have
heard Dueterte's name before, but many others like me might
not know anything about him and anything about this story
and the allegations against him. So I think it'd be
really helpful to just take it back to basics, back
(01:16):
to the start. Can you tell me a little bit
about who Rodrigo Duterte is.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, so I'll start just with when he came into
I guess the popular conscience. So he first rose to
prominence as the mayor of the city of Devo. Now
that's in the Philippines, and he served as the mayor
of that city for twenty two years, wow, really long time.
And the city itself was when he entered power, very
(01:43):
well known for how high the rates of crime were.
So he kind of came into power at a time
where there were the out of control crime rates in
the city that he was now presiding over. And during
the time the twenty two years that I said that
he served, Duterte developed a really well known reputation for
how he dealt with this rising crime. Now he was
(02:06):
often referred to as the Punisher, which I think says everything. Yeah,
he was extremely heavy handed and from the second that
he assumed power, said that he was going to crack
down on the crime rates and specifically declared war on drugs.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
So this heavy handed kind of leadership style that he
became known for very quickly, this name of the punisher that.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
He was given.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Obviously, he still was in power in that city for
twenty two odd years and I'm assuming that's just the
beginning of his political career.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, he was extremely popular, and he used exactly the
same platform that he had governed with in that city
to then launch his presidential bid. And so he became
president in twenty sixteen, and almost immediately what he said
he was going to do he did. Within days of
his landslide victory. He vowed to reintroduce the death penalty,
(03:02):
said he'd fatten all the fish in Minnila Bay with
the bodies of criminals. I'm going to quote some of
the things he said at that time because I think
it's quite remarkable that these were said publicly on television
and they're very readily accessible. He said, forget the laws
on human rights. If I make it to the presidential palace,
I will do just what I did as mayor. You
(03:23):
drug pushes, hold up men and do nothings, You better
go out because I'll kill you.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
So these are the words that he has said during campaigning.
So he's platformed on these hardline policies and then won
a landslide election victory.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah. And I mean he had the twenty two years
as mayor to point to to say, look, I have
changed this city, let me do the same thing to
the country. In a televised address shortly after he successfully
won the presidential election, he came out and very explicitly
endorsed members of the public engaging in vigilante activity, and
(03:57):
that basically just means like taking punishment into your own
hand outside of the legal system. He said directly that
he would personally reward anyone who shot and killed a
drug dealer. Just to give you a sense of the
numbers and what we're talking about here. According to Amnesty International,
more than six thousand people were killed in the first
six months of Deterte's presidency as part of this so
(04:20):
called war on drugs.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It's one thing to have a prominent leader kind of
take a hardline stance of this nature on drugs, but
a whole other thing to kind of, you know, we're
talking about what twenty sixteen to hear a leader in
the modern times that we live in essentially be endorsing
violence or this vigilante style activity from citizens.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, and I mean, you're right, because the war on
drugs is not anything new. You know, we've seen it
in US history. We've seen it to some effect here
like that is not a new concept or a new idea,
but what was happening in the Philippines was very different.
So I said six thousand people in the first six
months to give you a sense of how that was happening.
The overwhelming majority of those killings were extra judicial killings
(05:07):
by death squads. Wow, death squads being a term that
Duterte himself has owned. He said in twenty twenty four
last year that he had used death squads, and he
said in acknowledging the existence of these death squads that
they were mainly made up of gangsters. Which is interesting because, yeah,
all of this is about crime.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Because we're seeing the state or the law enforcement colluding
with organized crime in.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
This war on drugs.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
The war on drugs, presumably organized crime has a role
to play there.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So I guess there are those questions and of corruption.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, I mean, it's so multifaceted and there's still so
much that's not known. But what we do know is
that Human Rights Watch has said that what they call
the urban poor were the primary targets of these death squads.
And we've also learned quite a bit through the International
Criminal Court, and that court alleges that Deuterte's attacks were
(06:02):
both widespread and systematic. The court says that the crackdowns
took place over a period of several years and resulted
in thousands and thousands of deaths. Now, as I said,
the exact number isn't known, but I was looking around
to try to get a sense of it. The New
York Times reports that the death toll could be around
thirty thousand.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
What really struck me about this story is that it's
not just.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
About a government kind of going hard on drug manufacturing
or drug dealing organizations. This seemed to be such a
widespread policy that, you know, people in really remote or
poorer communities where drug addiction might have been a really
significant social issue in those areas, that there were kind
(06:47):
of mass killings targeted at those more vulnerable people within
the community as well.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, and I think the thing that stuck out to
me when I was researching this is the popularity that
he in. So Duturte left office extremely popular, I believe,
the most popular leader in the country's history, and so
he really had this kind of populist element to his popularity,
(07:14):
and I just think that's also really interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
You have mentioned that International Criminal Court investigation and the
arrest at the top of the episode. So what do
we need to know about how that fits into the
story why now?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, So let me just first quickly explain for our
listeners what the ICC is and then we'll go into
why we're talking about it today. So the ICC, or
the International Criminal Court, is a un body. It's tasked
with investigating crimes against humanity. So just quickly, the International
Court of Justice, the ICJ that looks at countries, the
(07:50):
ICC the one we're talking about today that looks at individuals, okay,
And so they're different courts and they have different they
have different mandates as well. So this court has power
to issue arrest warrants and to compel people to appear
before a tribunal at the Hague, which is in the Netherlands,
and that's where the ICC is based. One hundred and
twenty five countries are parties to the ICC, meaning they
(08:13):
recognize its power and that they must arrest anyone on
their soil with an active warrant. So that's not every
country you'll notice, and so there you start to see
some of the complexities that occur when we're talking about
these kind of world courts. And if you're thinking, why
have I heard about the ICC as of late. It
has been in the headlines a fair bit over the
(08:34):
last few years. The court has issued arrest warrants for
Russian leaders, for Israeli leaders, for leaders of Hamas, and
we've spoken about a few of those cases here on
the podcast before. But that's kind of why we've heard
a bit more from the ICC as of late.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Going back to Deterte, you mentioned earlier, Azara that the
ICC has one hundred and twenty five country members who
recognize its juristiction, but the Philippines isn't.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
One of those.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
No, it was until twenty nineteen when Duturte pulled the
Philippines out of the ICC in response to their investigation
into him. So they were a party to the ICC.
They are no longer and that remains true today, which
is why there are so many elements of this story
in white. It's so unusual that he has now been arrested.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So they launched an investigation into him when the Philippines
was still part of the ICC. The Philippines withdrew at
his demand. What were the International Criminal Court looking into
in those early days.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, so prosecutors at the time alleged in their application
to the ICC that and I'm just going to quote
it here. President Duturte and other high level government officials
reportedly encouraged, supported, enabled, and excused the killing of drug
users and drug dealers, and so under that they applied
for an arrest warrant. But as we just spoke about,
(10:04):
the Philippines hasn't been a party to the ICC, and
so that arrest warrant has kind of been at large
for a while. However, in November, the current president of
the Philippines said he wouldn't stop international police from arresting
Deuturte in the Philippines.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
But what's more interesting is that the current Vice president
of the Philippines is Dutte's daughter. Oh my god, and
so we've got the president who is basically giving the
green light for the vice president's father to be arrested
on home soil, which is exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I did not know that element.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Interesting as well, though, that the language from the Philippines
has been that it wouldn't stop police from arresting Deuterte,
so kind of careful political speak. I guess they're active
versus passages, not necessarily facilitating the arrest, but not standing
in the way. So that then brings us to the
present day, Zara, what has happened this week?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, so on Tuesday, the Philippines Presidential Communications Office confirmed
that Deuterte had been arrested after he arrived in Manila
on a flight from Hong Kong. In the statement, the
office said that Deuterte had received an official copy of
his arrest warrant, so he knew what he had been
arrested for. And then later that day, so very quickly,
(11:24):
Ditte was put on a plane to the Hague, which,
as I said earlier, is where the ICC is based,
where he is expected to face charges of crimes against humanity.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
So obviously this is a story and an investigation that
has been going on for several years.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
But to have all of that momentum in one day.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, he's been arrested, he'll face the International Criminal Court,
but presumably that doesn't happen immediately.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
No, So what is happening now?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, So nothing moves fast when we talk about international courts.
You know, got to think about how many different jurisdictions
and levels of law we're talking about here. So it
is a slow moving process. A trial isn't expected to
begin for another few months still, and when it does start,
it is likely to take a very long time to
(12:12):
get through all of this evidence has to be presented
on both sides. We are, however, expecting Deterte to appear
before the court as part of a pre trial hearing
sometime this week sometime soon. He won't be required at
this stage though, to enter a plea. This is just
the pre trial part before they get to the main
part of it all. In the meantime, while he awaits trial,
(12:34):
Deturte will be kept in detention near the Hague, so
near where he is being tried. And interestingly, I was
reading up about the detention center he's being kept at,
and he's been kept there with all the other people
that are there awaiting trial. Oh wow, And so there
are other world leaders and military leaders from a bunch
of different countries around the world. It's not a prism
(12:56):
in the sense that you think about when you think
of a prison. Yeah, apparently they're like, you're uga classes
there that they can do, so it's quite a Yeah,
it's quite an interesting concept. But I did think it
was unique that all of these kind of very powerful
people are all being kept vaguely in the same place.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
That's super interesting, Zara, What kind of outcome has been predicted?
What could this look like on the other side of
what will no doubt be an incredibly lengthy trial, is
Duturte looking at life behind bars?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
What happens?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, Look, it's very difficult to know. There's not a
whole heap of precedent that's been set in this space.
And I mean, if we look at the numbers since
the court was created, its judges have issued just eleven
convictions and four acquittals. Twenty one people have appeared before
the court, and thirty one people remain at large, largely
(13:48):
the people that you know we mentioned earlier. Charges have
also been dropped against seven people due to their deaths.
And so I think that gives you a sense that
we don't know a whole lot. There's not this rule
book that followed. These are all very unique cases in
different jurisdictions. So we don't know what will happen from here.
But first, as I said, there'll be that pre trial,
(14:08):
then the trial, and then we'll have to see what
happens from there.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Interestingly, you mentioned Duturte's popularity as leader, and a popularity
that has stood the test of time for some people
of the Philippines, because we've seen a lot of protests
that have emerged on the ground there in the day
since his arrest, So some more kind of knock on
effects domestically for people in the Philippines, and a lot
of unrest on both sides.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, and what's interesting as well is I mentioned his
daughter is the vice president. Her popularity is extremely high.
She was kind of this shoe in to become president
at the next election, I believe in twenty twenty eight,
had really high popularity ratings. What this will do to that,
no one really knows. But again, just something really interesting
to consider and a complexity to all of this.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
A very very complicated story with so many interesting and
and facets. Zara, thank you so much for breaking that
down for us today and explaining it so well. Thanks
em Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you
enjoyed it, feel free to share it with a friend,
or if you are watching us over on YouTube, don't
forget to subscribe. We'll be back a little bit later
(15:15):
on today with your evening headlines, but until then, have
a great day.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Already and this is the Dailia.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
This is the Dailias.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily Os. It's Friday,
the fourteenth of March. I'm zara, i'm emma. Earlier this week,
the former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo de Turte, was
arrested at an airport after arriving back into the Philippines.
This comes after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant
for his arrest. Duturte initiated a sweeping crackdown on drug
(00:37):
use and trafficking in the Southeast Asian country while in power,
and now ICC prosecutors alleged the crime against humanity of
murder has been committed, as well as things like torture,
sexual violence, and enforced disappearance.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Okay, so Zara, this story really took me via surprise
this week. I'm sure some of our listeners may have
heard Dueterte's name before, but many others like me might
not know anything about him and anything about this story
and the allegations against him. So I think it'd be
really helpful to just take it back to basics, back
(01:16):
to the start. Can you tell me a little bit
about who Rodrigo Duterte is.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, so I'll start just with when he came into
I guess the popular conscience. So he first rose to
prominence as the mayor of the city of Devo. Now
that's in the Philippines, and he served as the mayor
of that city for twenty two years, wow, really long time.
And the city itself was when he entered power, very
(01:43):
well known for how high the rates of crime were.
So he kind of came into power at a time
where there were the out of control crime rates in
the city that he was now presiding over. And during
the time the twenty two years that I said that
he served, Duterte developed a really well known reputation for
how he dealt with this rising crime. Now he was
(02:06):
often referred to as the Punisher, which I think says everything. Yeah,
he was extremely heavy handed and from the second that
he assumed power, said that he was going to crack
down on the crime rates and specifically declared war on drugs.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
So this heavy handed kind of leadership style that he
became known for very quickly, this name of the punisher that.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
He was given.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Obviously, he still was in power in that city for
twenty two odd years and I'm assuming that's just the
beginning of his political career.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah, he was extremely popular, and he used exactly the
same platform that he had governed with in that city
to then launch his presidential bid. And so he became
president in twenty sixteen, and almost immediately what he said
he was going to do he did. Within days of
his landslide victory. He vowed to reintroduce the death penalty,
(03:02):
said he'd fatten all the fish in Minnila Bay with
the bodies of criminals. I'm going to quote some of
the things he said at that time because I think
it's quite remarkable that these were said publicly on television
and they're very readily accessible. He said, forget the laws
on human rights. If I make it to the presidential palace,
I will do just what I did as mayor. You
(03:23):
drug pushes, hold up men and do nothings, You better
go out because I'll kill you.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
So these are the words that he has said during campaigning.
So he's platformed on these hardline policies and then won
a landslide election victory.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah. And I mean he had the twenty two years
as mayor to point to to say, look, I have
changed this city, let me do the same thing to
the country. In a televised address shortly after he successfully
won the presidential election, he came out and very explicitly
endorsed members of the public engaging in vigilante activity, and
(03:57):
that basically just means like taking punishment into your own
hand outside of the legal system. He said directly that
he would personally reward anyone who shot and killed a
drug dealer. Just to give you a sense of the
numbers and what we're talking about here. According to Amnesty International,
more than six thousand people were killed in the first
six months of Deterte's presidency as part of this so
(04:20):
called war on drugs.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It's one thing to have a prominent leader kind of
take a hardline stance of this nature on drugs, but
a whole other thing to kind of, you know, we're
talking about what twenty sixteen to hear a leader in
the modern times that we live in essentially be endorsing
violence or this vigilante style activity from citizens.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, and I mean, you're right, because the war on
drugs is not anything new. You know, we've seen it
in US history. We've seen it to some effect here
like that is not a new concept or a new idea,
but what was happening in the Philippines was very different.
So I said six thousand people in the first six
months to give you a sense of how that was happening.
The overwhelming majority of those killings were extra judicial killings
(05:07):
by death squads. Wow, death squads being a term that
Duterte himself has owned. He said in twenty twenty four
last year that he had used death squads, and he
said in acknowledging the existence of these death squads that
they were mainly made up of gangsters. Which is interesting because, yeah,
all of this is about crime.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Because we're seeing the state or the law enforcement colluding
with organized crime in.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
This war on drugs.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
The war on drugs, presumably organized crime has a role
to play there.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So I guess there are those questions and of corruption.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Yeah, I mean, it's so multifaceted and there's still so
much that's not known. But what we do know is
that Human Rights Watch has said that what they call
the urban poor were the primary targets of these death squads.
And we've also learned quite a bit through the International
Criminal Court, and that court alleges that Deuterte's attacks were
(06:02):
both widespread and systematic. The court says that the crackdowns
took place over a period of several years and resulted
in thousands and thousands of deaths. Now, as I said,
the exact number isn't known, but I was looking around
to try to get a sense of it. The New
York Times reports that the death toll could be around
thirty thousand.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
What really struck me about this story is that it's
not just.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
About a government kind of going hard on drug manufacturing
or drug dealing organizations. This seemed to be such a
widespread policy that, you know, people in really remote or
poorer communities where drug addiction might have been a really
significant social issue in those areas, that there were kind
(06:47):
of mass killings targeted at those more vulnerable people within
the community as well.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Yeah, and I think the thing that stuck out to
me when I was researching this is the popularity that
he in. So Duturte left office extremely popular, I believe,
the most popular leader in the country's history, and so
he really had this kind of populist element to his popularity,
(07:14):
and I just think that's also really interesting.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
You have mentioned that International Criminal Court investigation and the
arrest at the top of the episode. So what do
we need to know about how that fits into the
story why now?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, So let me just first quickly explain for our
listeners what the ICC is and then we'll go into
why we're talking about it today. So the ICC, or
the International Criminal Court, is a un body. It's tasked
with investigating crimes against humanity. So just quickly, the International
Court of Justice, the ICJ that looks at countries, the
(07:50):
ICC the one we're talking about today that looks at individuals, okay,
And so they're different courts and they have different they
have different mandates as well. So this court has power
to issue arrest warrants and to compel people to appear
before a tribunal at the Hague, which is in the Netherlands,
and that's where the ICC is based. One hundred and
twenty five countries are parties to the ICC, meaning they
(08:13):
recognize its power and that they must arrest anyone on
their soil with an active warrant. So that's not every
country you'll notice, and so there you start to see
some of the complexities that occur when we're talking about
these kind of world courts. And if you're thinking, why
have I heard about the ICC as of late. It
has been in the headlines a fair bit over the
(08:34):
last few years. The court has issued arrest warrants for
Russian leaders, for Israeli leaders, for leaders of Hamas, and
we've spoken about a few of those cases here on
the podcast before. But that's kind of why we've heard
a bit more from the ICC as of late.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Going back to Deterte, you mentioned earlier, Azara that the
ICC has one hundred and twenty five country members who
recognize its juristiction, but the Philippines isn't.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
One of those.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
No, it was until twenty nineteen when Duturte pulled the
Philippines out of the ICC in response to their investigation
into him. So they were a party to the ICC.
They are no longer and that remains true today, which
is why there are so many elements of this story
in white. It's so unusual that he has now been arrested.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
So they launched an investigation into him when the Philippines
was still part of the ICC. The Philippines withdrew at
his demand. What were the International Criminal Court looking into
in those early days.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Yeah, so prosecutors at the time alleged in their application
to the ICC that and I'm just going to quote
it here. President Duturte and other high level government officials
reportedly encouraged, supported, enabled, and excused the killing of drug
users and drug dealers, and so under that they applied
for an arrest warrant. But as we just spoke about,
(10:04):
the Philippines hasn't been a party to the ICC, and
so that arrest warrant has kind of been at large
for a while. However, in November, the current president of
the Philippines said he wouldn't stop international police from arresting
Deuturte in the Philippines.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
But what's more interesting is that the current Vice president
of the Philippines is Dutte's daughter. Oh my god, and
so we've got the president who is basically giving the
green light for the vice president's father to be arrested
on home soil, which is exactly what happened.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
I did not know that element.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Interesting as well, though, that the language from the Philippines
has been that it wouldn't stop police from arresting Deuterte,
so kind of careful political speak. I guess they're active
versus passages, not necessarily facilitating the arrest, but not standing
in the way. So that then brings us to the
present day, Zara, what has happened this week?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, so on Tuesday, the Philippines Presidential Communications Office confirmed
that Deuterte had been arrested after he arrived in Manila
on a flight from Hong Kong. In the statement, the
office said that Deuterte had received an official copy of
his arrest warrant, so he knew what he had been
arrested for. And then later that day, so very quickly,
(11:24):
Ditte was put on a plane to the Hague, which,
as I said earlier, is where the ICC is based,
where he is expected to face charges of crimes against humanity.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
So obviously this is a story and an investigation that
has been going on for several years.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
But to have all of that momentum in one day.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, he's been arrested, he'll face the International Criminal Court,
but presumably that doesn't happen immediately.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
No, So what is happening now?
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, So nothing moves fast when we talk about international courts.
You know, got to think about how many different jurisdictions
and levels of law we're talking about here. So it
is a slow moving process. A trial isn't expected to
begin for another few months still, and when it does start,
it is likely to take a very long time to
(12:12):
get through all of this evidence has to be presented
on both sides. We are, however, expecting Deterte to appear
before the court as part of a pre trial hearing
sometime this week sometime soon. He won't be required at
this stage though, to enter a plea. This is just
the pre trial part before they get to the main
part of it all. In the meantime, while he awaits trial,
(12:34):
Deturte will be kept in detention near the Hague, so
near where he is being tried. And interestingly, I was
reading up about the detention center he's being kept at,
and he's been kept there with all the other people
that are there awaiting trial. Oh wow, And so there
are other world leaders and military leaders from a bunch
of different countries around the world. It's not a prism
(12:56):
in the sense that you think about when you think
of a prison. Yeah, apparently they're like, you're uga classes
there that they can do, so it's quite a Yeah,
it's quite an interesting concept. But I did think it
was unique that all of these kind of very powerful
people are all being kept vaguely in the same place.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
That's super interesting, Zara, What kind of outcome has been predicted?
What could this look like on the other side of
what will no doubt be an incredibly lengthy trial, is
Duturte looking at life behind bars?
Speaker 1 (13:26):
What happens?
Speaker 2 (13:27):
Yeah, Look, it's very difficult to know. There's not a
whole heap of precedent that's been set in this space.
And I mean, if we look at the numbers since
the court was created, its judges have issued just eleven
convictions and four acquittals. Twenty one people have appeared before
the court, and thirty one people remain at large, largely
(13:48):
the people that you know we mentioned earlier. Charges have
also been dropped against seven people due to their deaths.
And so I think that gives you a sense that
we don't know a whole lot. There's not this rule
book that followed. These are all very unique cases in
different jurisdictions. So we don't know what will happen from here.
But first, as I said, there'll be that pre trial,
(14:08):
then the trial, and then we'll have to see what
happens from there.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Interestingly, you mentioned Duturte's popularity as leader, and a popularity
that has stood the test of time for some people
of the Philippines, because we've seen a lot of protests
that have emerged on the ground there in the day
since his arrest, So some more kind of knock on
effects domestically for people in the Philippines, and a lot
of unrest on both sides.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, and what's interesting as well is I mentioned his
daughter is the vice president. Her popularity is extremely high.
She was kind of this shoe in to become president
at the next election, I believe in twenty twenty eight,
had really high popularity ratings. What this will do to that,
no one really knows. But again, just something really interesting
to consider and a complexity to all of this.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
A very very complicated story with so many interesting and
and facets. Zara, thank you so much for breaking that
down for us today and explaining it so well. Thanks
em Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you
enjoyed it, feel free to share it with a friend,
or if you are watching us over on YouTube, don't
forget to subscribe. We'll be back a little bit later
(15:15):
on today with your evening headlines, but until then, have
a great day.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges
that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Strait island and nations. We pay our respects to the
first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
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