The administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. should not have allowed former President Rodrigo Duterte to be whisked off to The Hague like that.
I don’t know if what the government did was legal. I’m no lawyer, so I will leave it to those with knowledge of the law to broach the subject. However, as an ordinary taxpayer, I would like to share my thoughts on the matter.
Sure, Malacañang could have waited. Perhaps delayed the proceedings—just for a bit. One day would have made such a big difference to the millions of people in the country who still support Digong. And what was the rush, anyway? The guy had just arrived from Hong Kong when he was taken into police custody.
I get it. Serving the warrant against him would have been next to impossible had he been allowed to fly to Davao City, his home turf. Surely, Dabawenyos wouldn’t have given him up without a fight. So, time was of the essence. But don’t tell me his camp didn’t have men on the ground who knew he would be arrested upon his return while he was still in the former British colony. If that was the case, then why didn’t he fly straight to Davao? There is a direct flight, isn’t there?
Something feels off. I just can’t put my finger on it. Somehow, the whole thing feels scripted. But I don’t know who is being taken for a ride. Or maybe I’m overthinking the whole thing. After all, truth is stranger than fiction.
Maybe Digong knew what awaited him here and decided to play the martyr. He already alluded to it during a speech in Hong Kong over the weekend. Didn’t he jokingly tell the crowd to make small contributions for the construction of his monument?
So far, he has played the sympathy card to perfection. Who’d believe a frail 79-year-old man could be guilty of crimes against humanity?
That said, I am hoping Duterte has an ace up his sleeve. I, for one, don’t want to believe that he and his camp would be so naïve as to unknowingly walk into a “trap” without any backup plan. Unless, of course, they thought it could never happen to the former president.
I didn’t agree with many of his policies when he was still president, but I can’t help but root for him.
To those who know me, I supported Mar Roxas in the 2016 presidential elections. I wasn’t a big fan of Digong, even though my mother is from Davao City, and I go there at least three times a year to visit relatives. I find him vulgar. I find him crass. His misogyny set women’s rights in the country back to the 1950s.
But I did support his war on drugs. That, I cannot deny, especially since I wrote several columns about it. And I would do the same again without hesitation, even though Duterte failed to fulfill his campaign promise to eradicate the drug menace. But at least he struck terror into the criminal population.
I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that the country’s majority backed his crackdown on illegal drugs, even though Duterte only garnered 39 percent of the votes in the 2016 presidential elections.
And let’s not be hypocrites. Many of us chose to turn a blind eye when the killings began, whether the victims were innocent or not. Most of us clung to the belief that the end would justify the means. After all, in war, there are always casualties.
I am not a cynic. I am just a realist.
If Digong is indeed guilty of crimes against humanity because of his bloody war on drugs, then let a local court convict him. Don’t leave his fate to an international tribunal headquartered in a country with a dark and bloody colonial past.