“From my own news, I have a warrant … from the ICC or something … these motherf***ers have been chasing me for a long time. What did I do wrong?” Spoken at a gathering in Hong Kong on 9 March, these words by Rodrigo Duterte, the ex-president who governed the Philippines with an iron fist for six turbulent years, exuded a sense of bravado that comes from long-standing impunity.
On landing at Manila airport two days later, he found ICC officials waiting for him. According to CNN, “On Wednesday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands confirmed the former Philippines leader was now in its custody.”
Having earned the moniker “The Punisher” for his violent crackdown on drugs that saw the killings of “tens of thousands” of people according to the UN, Duterte was taken into custody on charges of crimes against humanity.
Duterte also had a long history of hostility towards the media. Just a few days before assuming the top office, he said that the 176 journalists killed in the country since 1976 “deserved to die” and that they wouldn’t have been killed if they hadn’t done anything wrong.
Commenting on his arrest, Nobel prize-winning journalist, founder and CEO of news website Rappler Maria Ressa who had been at the receiving end of the Duterte administration’s ire told CNN, “It’s historic for the Philippines, it’s the first time a Philippine president has been arrested for crimes against humanity. That an Interpol-led arrest actually ended this impunity under president Duterte that now has him going to The Hague.”
Ressa and her team at Rappler emerged as a symbol of the wrath that civil society and the media at large faced during the Duterte years. Deploying a litany of SLAPPs (“strategic litigation against public participation”), one of the most frequently used forms of legal coercion, against the journalist, Ressa at one point faced enough cases against her that together could lead to her imprisonment for almost 100 years. This, coupled with a barrage of hate on social media, was weaponized to deter Rappler, and other independent media outlets, from reporting information critical of the government.
One example of Rappler’s most impactful work is an investigative report titled “Murders in Manila”. This series, published in seven installments, unearthed the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) alleged collaboration with a vigilante organization to conduct extrajudicial killings in the Tondo district of Manila during President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. It reveals testimonies from self-confessed vigilantes that suggest that police officials provided target lists and financial incentives for these murders. Despite arrests in 2017, many suspects remain free and some victims’ families retracted complaints, possibly due to intimidation. The investigation, which went on to win the Excellence in Human Rights Reporting Award and Excellence in Investigative Reporting Award from the Society of Publishers in Asia, and the Global Shining Light Award, underscored the blurred lines between law enforcement and vigilantism, raising concerns about accountability and human rights violations in the anti-drug campaign.
According to the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, 19 journalists were killed in the first four years of Duterte’s presidency and at least 171 cases attacks and intimidation of journalists were registered. “The Punisher’s” attack on civil society extended beyond the media, as activists and civil society organizations faced “intense intimidation and obstruction in their attempts to do human rights work” and the President himself threatened to “‘behead’ and ‘kill’ human rights defenders who criticized his administration”, as reported by Amnesty International.
While Duterte has maintained his defiant tone as he promised to “continue to serve” his country in a video posted on his Facebook page after his arrest, there is a “mixed feeling of joy and hope and anxiety,” according to human rights campaigner Aurora Parong. In an interview with CNN she raises an important question: “We do not exactly know where this will end up to what will be the outcome. Will there really be accountability?” Meanwhile, speaking to The Guardian from Berlin in her characteristic optimistic style, Ressa says, “There’s a sense that impunity ends and that the idea of an international, rules-based order can perhaps still exist.”