LAST WEEK’S arrest at Manila airport and extradition of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague has been met with widespread acclaim in the Western Establishment media.

If you believe these Western narratives, Duterte’s detention is yet another triumph of international justice, an endorsement of human rights legislation, and a vindication of the principle that “no-one is above the law.” This is apparently an open-and-shut case.

Let’s be clear. Duterte is not innocent. He has openly confessed his support for, if not direct involvement in, the extrajudicial killings (EJK) which he greenlit during the so-called drugs war. This happened first during his decades as mayor of Davao City on the island of Mindanao and then as president of the Philippines. In any truly independent and democratic society, Duterte would face charges in front of a jury of his peers.

According to the ICC, there are: “15 forms of crimes against humanity listed in the Rome Statute [which] include offences such as murder, rape, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, enslavement — particularly of women and children, sexual slavery, torture, apartheid and deportation.”

Duterte is specifically charged with torture, murder and rape. The ICC claims that “the court retains jurisdiction with respect to alleged crimes that occurred on the territory of the Philippines while it was a State Party, from November 1 2011 up to and including March 16 2019.”

Duterte’s legal team has insisted that since there was no ongoing ICC investigation before the Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC in March 2019, the Rome Statute is void. In addition, Duterte’s extradition violated every aspect of Philippine and international law.

He was denied access to legal counsel while on Philippine territory, including from his own daughter Sara Duterte the country’s vice-president, and the right to challenge his extradition in a sovereign Philippine court. So much for the rule of law, the Duterte camp argues.

His precise role in the EJKs is difficult to assess though, since the drugs war allowed rival gangs, corrupt police units, the military and local oligarchs to eliminate opponents, clients and to cover their tracks, sacrificing thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of impoverished young men and women who merely acted as couriers or low-level dealers.

Many of those murdered were themselves victims of addiction to the cheap and once easily obtainable drug shabu, a methamphetamine. It also provided an opportunity for endless petty score-settling, frame-ups and personal or business-related vendettas.

Sadly, the drugs war was one of Duterte’s most popular policies among a population ravaged by poverty and its companions; addiction, crime and violence. Many people simply felt safer during the crackdowns, and credit Duterte for providing greater security. Duterte, it is true, also expanded drug rehabilitation programmes during his term for those who “surrendered,” although the long-term effects of this are more difficult to gauge.

Make no mistake, Duterte remains a hero to large sections of the Filipino people who have every reason to distrust an expensive, lengthy and archaic legal system, a corrupt venal police force and a bloated, bloodied military.

The latter entities are themselves responsible for countless EJKs ranging from petty criminals to trade union, peasant movement, and left-wing activists. Most of these “encounters,” the official euphemism for these witness-free killings, remain mysteriously unsolved.

In these circumstances, many on the liberal left, and even the Maoist National Democratic Front of the Philippines, look to supranational bodies such as the ICC or the ICCJ to right the wrongs that appear insurmountable on a national level.

For example, Benjamin Netanyahu may well one day end up in the dock of Israeli court but if so it will be on account of his relatively minor domestic misdemeanours not his genocidal onslaught against the Palestinians nor his invasions of Lebanon or Syria.

In any case, Palestine, unlike the Philippines, is a signatory to the ICC and many of Netanyahu’s major crimes were committed on Palestinian territory. Duterte’s alleged crimes were committed on Filipino soil by Filipinos against Filipinos. This is where and by who he should be judged.

Here we get to the second dimension of Duterte’s arrest. The Philippines is a poor and weak country. The brilliant anti-imperialist writer Michael Parenti included the nation among those countries which were not “under-developed” but “over-exploited.”

No leader of an imperialist country has faced international justice for their crimes. Only defeated or subjugated nations and regimes have suffered this fate and, even then, only selectively. In 1948, former Japanese prime minister Tojo was hung for his complicity in Tokyo’s war crimes, while his god-boss Emperor Hirohito got a state visit and overnight stay at Buckingham Palace in 1971.

This brings us to the third factor, the pivot to Washington by Duterte’s successor, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr. While Duterte quite astutely recognised the benefits of closer China-Philippines relations and the need to avoid being enlisted in the US-led cold war against China, Marcos has swivelled on this 180 degrees.

Marcos 2.0 made his first foreign trip as president to China in January 2023. He had met Xi Jinping at a side meeting in Bangkok a few months earlier. The red carpet was rolled out for him in Beijing.

In numerous media interviews, Bongbong reminisced about his first time in the Chinese capital as a young boy where he met Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, during a state visit with his father and mother Imelda, as part of Manila’s establishment of relations with the People’s Republic of China.

In their 2023 discussions, 14 projects were outlined in the joint Filipino-China communique, especially regarding China’s help in the Philippines’ shocking lack of infrastructure. All seemed fine.

However, several weeks earlier, in late 2022 there had been a visit to the Philippines from the then US vice-president Kamala Harris. She arrived promising US support for Rodrigo Duterte’s successor, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr, over disputed islets and shoals in the South China Sea (rechristened the West Philippine Sea in Manila).

Unknown at the time to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Marcos had secretly agreed to US plans to expand new military bases in the Philippines under the Enhanced Defence Co-operation Agreement, which went into effect on February 1 2023. The four new sites were the Naval Base Camilo Osias in Santa Ana, Cagayan; Camp Melchor Dela Cruz in Gamu, Isabela; Balabac Island in Palawan; and Lal-lo airport in Cagayan, all set to give the US additional military power against Beijing.

China was furious.

If Duterte was a one-off nationalist maverick, Marcos Jnr was seen as a snake.

Bongbong was a grown man (28) at the time of his father’s overthrow and was implicated in the crimes and corruption of his parents. After his father’s death in 1989, he emerged as the anointed son.

In 1995, the District Court of Hawaii, the US state to which the Marcos clique had been airlifted by Ronald Reagan after their overthrow, ordered the Marcos family to pay $2 billion “in reparations to the victims of the martial law imposed by Marcus Sr. In 2011, Marcus Jr and his mother, Imelda, were fined $353 million by the court for failing to provide information on assets in connection to the human rights class action suit against Marcos Sr.” (Newsweek, “Philippines’ Marcos Jr. Can Visit US Without Arrest Over $353m Court Order,” June 9 2022)

Miraculously, a few months after the military bases deal, the legal status of Bongbong changed.

The US magazine Newsweek reported that: “A spokesperson for the US embassy in Manila, without directly addressing Marcos’ case, told Reuters that the president-elect [Ferdinand Marcos Jnr] will be free to enter the country without risk despite the contempt order still being active.”

Finally, we come to the fourth factor, which is the rupture within the Philippines’ domestic ruling family elites. At the moment, this focuses on the feud between the Marcos and Duterte clans but ultimately it goes much deeper. While the “semi-feudal” aspects of Filipino society are exaggerated by the Maoist left, the imprints of clan patronage and nepotism remain remarkably strong, but they have mutated into a capitalist oligarchy.

An article published in Sulong (Forward) the organ of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930 (the Philippine Communist Party-1930 is the pre-split anti-Maoist CP) revealed the extent of this. The PKP’s analysis (from just before the 2022 elections) seems chillingly prophetic:

“The system of political dynasties was institutionalised during the US colonial period, with some research institutes of leading Catholic universities in Metro Manila estimating that about 319 dynastic families controlled politics under the direct US colonial period (up to 1946). This continued to prevail in the early neocolonial period.

“During the martial law period, the Marcos regime exerted every effort to marginalise some non-co-operative political clans, and instead supported the rise of other friendly political dynasties. The US-orchestrated regime change in 1986 saw the temporary exclusion of some Marcos-backed clans, and their replacement in power by Aquino-backed dynasties (including the bloody Ampatuan warlord clan in Maguindanao).

“Since then, the rise of taipans [a term borrowed from Chinese referring to modern-day oligarchs] in the business sector, who got tired of giving in to exactions by political dynasties and warlord clans, led to new alignments and the formation of new political dynasties. The new taipan political dynasties joined the fray which was largely controlled, until 2016, by the Aquino-backed dynasties. Researchers have estimated that at least 234 dynastic families won positions in the last (2019 midterm) elections.

“After the fallen dictator Marcos died in 1989, his heirs returned to their traditional bailiwicks of Ilocos Norte and (northern) Leyte provinces, and began tapping local loyalties to get elected to several positions. Now, the Marcos dynasty and their allies are set to make a comeback on the national stage, and to dislodge the dynasties nurtured during the Aquino period.”

Rodrigo Duterte’s rise to power was facilitated by his remarkable mother Soledad, a longtime anti-Marcos activist. In the aftermath of the People Power revolution of 1986, she was approached by her friend and newly installed president Corazon (Cory) Aquino to find a reliable leader in the important southern city of Davao, which is the largest Philippine city by territory and ranks third by population. Soledad suggested her son as deputy mayor and since then a Duterte has been running Davao ever since.

As the Sulong article noted: “A prime example is president Digong [his nickname] Duterte himself, who held leading positions in Davao City for more than 3 decades — usually as city mayor, and then also as congressman representing the city. At one time he also ran for vice-mayor after reaching the three-term limit for mayor, even while his daughter Sara ran for city mayor. In the coming election [2022], Sara is running for vice-president of the country, while her brothers are running for congressman and mayor of Davao City.”

“According to researchers, around 80 per cent of provincial governors now belong to ‘fat dynasties’ (clans with 2 or more members in power at the same time). In comparison, it was only 57 per cent in 2004. Political dynasties now also hold 67 per cent of seats in the House of Representatives, compared with 48 per cent in 2004. Political dynasties also now hold 53 per cent of mayoral posts, up from 40 per cent in 2004.

“Of the leading candidates for 12 senate seats being contested in the May 2022 elections, at least 3 already have a relative in the chamber. While more than 18,000 positions are being contested in the May 2022 elections, at least 800 positions have only one (1) candidate, usually in provinces, cities and towns ruled by warlord families.”

There is a further danger. The Marcos clan is jettisoning its Duterte alliance before it has secured its own national base in advance of this May’s election, which will determine all 317 seats in the House of Representatives and 12 of the 24 seats in the Senate. Local elections will also be held in every province, city, and municipality in the country. In addition, there are attempts to impeach the serving vice-president Sara Duterte, which if successful would make it impossible for her to run as a presidential candidate in 2028.

The Philippines is now a key focus for the anti-China cold war and the British left and anti-war movement needs to develop a more nuanced understanding of this beautiful but tragic country.