Rodrigo Duterte swept the polls in the 2016 Philippine elections under the promise to continue a bloody hunt against drug trafficking that he had initiated during his 22 years as mayor of Davao, the country's third-largest city. Duterte himself admitted in an interview that he had personally shot and killed three men. "Forget about human rights. You, drug traffickers, robbers, and lazy people, better leave because I will kill you," he warned before entering Manila triumphantly with an absolute majority.
Duterte kept his promise. Extrajudicial executions on the streets spread to many cities. Some victims' bodies, alleged traffickers or users, were thrown into rivers. Others were found on street corners with their faces covered, limbs tied, and a cardboard sign reading: "I am a drug addict."
To carry out the president's orders, security forces were joined by hitmen and criminal organizations, who used the drug war as a cover to settle their own scores. Over the years, official investigations have uncovered dozens of police setups where officers planted drug packages at crime scenes, as well as weapons, to claim they had acted in self-defense.
This was the case with the young Galician surfer Diego Bello Lafuente, shot dead on January 8, 2020, on the Philippine island of Siargao. We spoke with his parents, Pilar Lafuente and Alberto Bello, hours after it was revealed that Rodrigo Duterte had been arrested in Manila following an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has been investigating the drug war in the Philippines for years, for crimes against humanity.
"We cannot truly express how we feel about the arrest for fear of how it may be taken in the Philippines, where we are still pursuing the ongoing legal process against the police officers who killed Diego. Duterte remains very popular in his country. He holds a lot of power, influence, and his daughter is the vice president. We have to be cautious to ensure the case continues to progress," says Pilar from A Coruña.
Duterte (79 years old) was arrested on Tuesday at Manila airport. The former leader was flown on the same day to The Hague, home to a tribunal that, through numerous reports from human rights organizations, journalistic and judicial investigations, has documented and collected evidence of the killings during a drug war that officially claimed 6,000 lives. However, many independent organizations estimate the number of victims between 12,000 and 30,000.
The news of Duterte's arrest caught Diego's parents after a trip to Brussels, where they met with several Members of the European Parliament to seek support for the legal process regarding their son's murder. Pilar and Alberto have traveled to the Belgian capital several times, successfully pressuring the European Union to urge Manila to ensure the crime does not go unpunished. "Now, the trial is on hold because the presiding judge retired, and they are looking for a new magistrate. We ask Europe to continue exerting pressure, reminding the Filipino authorities of our case, to expedite the process," says Pilar.
Diego's parents have also traveled to the Philippines up to four times. Two years ago, they came face to face, during a hearing, with the three police officers who killed their son. Captain Wise Vicente Panuelos, and Sergeants Ronel Pazo and Nido Boy Cortés, are being tried for murder, perjury, and tampering with evidence. According to their account, in the midst of an undercover operation, they had arranged to meet Diego, who was suspected of drug trafficking, to buy drugs from him. When they tried to arrest him, the Spaniard pulled out a gun, fired first, and tried to escape. The officers then used their weapons. A version that was debunked by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), the equivalent of the Prosecutor's Office.
Neither did Diego have a weapon, nor was there any evidence in police records that he was involved in any shady drug-related business. After hearing dozens of testimonies and meticulously reviewing the crime scene, prosecutors concluded that it was all a police setup.
The three officers, after a year on the run, surrendered in 2023. "The officers, after an initial very sloppy report, submitted another claiming they were in contact with the Philippine narcotics agency, which already had its eye on Diego. However, when the NBI asked the agency, they said they knew nothing about the case and had never investigated Diego," explains Guillermo Mosquera, the family's lawyer.
All the investigation that dismantles the police version, and the fight of the family and friends of the murdered Galician, is captured in a documentary, Justice for Diego, which premiered earlier this year. "The three killers are now locked up in the Manila city jail, but until last year, they were in a prison for police officers, where corrupt agents are held, and they were in good conditions there," says Pilar.
"Finally, the judge handling the case ordered their transfer to the Manila prison, which is tougher. But it took time, and even when our lawyer wrote in June last year to the director of the city jail to inquire if the three officers had been transferred, he replied yes, when they were still in the other penitentiary," the mother asserts.
From Manila, many families of the drug war victims have celebrated Duterte's arrest and transfer to The Hague. In recent hours, the former president's lawyers have denounced his "kidnapping" and demand his return to the Asian country. The defense argues that since the Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute in 2019 - the roadmap that led to the establishment of the international court - the ICC no longer has jurisdiction. However, the court maintains that it retains jurisdiction over crimes committed in the country before its withdrawal, such as extrajudicial executions under Duterte's command.
"Families in the Philippines have lost faith in the national justice system, which is why they pinned their hopes on the ICC and now have much to celebrate," says Carlos Conde, a researcher in the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, one of the organizations that has collected extensive testimonies on the massacres committed by the Philippine security forces.
Duterte's always controversial downfall has caused a political earthquake in his country. The former president was already campaigning to run in May's local elections as mayor of his traditional stronghold, Davao. "I trust that the arrest was appropriate, correct, and complied with all necessary legal procedures," declared President Marcos Jr, who has been cooperating with the ICC investigation in recent months. This happened as his alliance with his vice president, the daughter of the detained leader, Sara Duterte, was crumbling, with her flying to Amsterdam on Wednesday to assist her father with the legal preparations for the trial that will take place in the international court.