The confirmation hearings on the crimes against humanity charge against former president Rodrigo Duterte at the International Criminal Court in The Hague will proceed as scheduled from Feb. 23 to 27, despite his decision not to attend, two sources familiar with ICC procedures said.
Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who filed the first case against Duterte at the ICC in 2017 along with former representative Gary Alejano, said, “The hearings will continue without him.”
Romel Bagares, former counsel of the Coalition for the ICC, likewise said the confirmation proceedings would go on. “That’s what the waiver is for.”
In a signed waiver dated Feb. 17 and first posted on the vlog “Alvin and Tourism” before spreading on social and mainstream media, Duterte wrote: “I wish to waive my right to attend the hearing on the confirmation of charges currently fixed for 23-27 February 2026,” including through the use of communications technology.
The signed waiver was attached to a notification submitted Feb. 18 by his lawyer, Nicholas Kaufman, to the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I.
Duterte cited three reasons:
First, he does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction over him.
“I am a Filipino citizen forcibly pushed into a jet and renditioned to The Hague in the Netherlands in flagrant contravention of my country’s Constitution and of national sovereignty.”
Second, he denies the allegations in the prosecution’s document containing the charges.
“The claim that I oversaw a policy of extra-judicial killings is an outrageous lie. These claims have been peddled by my political opponents for many years and, as my nation knows, they are based on the word of individuals whose credibility has been thoroughly discredited.”
Third, he said he is forgetful and physically weak.
“I do not wish to attend legal proceedings that I will forget within minutes. I am old, tired, and frail. I wish for this Court to respect my peace inside the cell it has placed me. I have accepted the fact that I could die in prison.”
Bagares described the waiver as “a mess of contradictions.”
“The first part says he fully understands the consequences of the waiver. Then in the last paragraph, he says he doesn’t wish to attend something he will only forget about shortly.”
Bagares added that Duterte may also be seeking to avoid facing the families of alleged victims who are expected to attend the hearing.
“He may not want the indignity of being made to face in court the families of his victims. Or he didn’t want to give them that satisfaction.”
In the notification of Duterte’s waiver to the Chamber, Kaufman related that he had submitted the request much earlier but the Pre-Trial Chamber decided that it needs to “receive a written request that must be personally executed by the suspect intending to waive his or her right to be present at the confirmation of charges hearing. This requirement, according to the Pre-Trial Chamber, is necessitated ‘pursuant to the clear wording of rule 124(1) of the Rules’”.
Kaufman said Duterte, whom he describes as “aged and infirm” is not now capable of “’personally executing’ anything, let alone writing a legally reasoned waiver in his own hand. That is why he has lawyers both speaking for him and drafting documents on his behalf.”
On Feb. 16, he said, “Mr Duterte orally dictated his reasoning for requesting a waiver to his legal team and for the Prosecution who desires it so eagerly. These words were typed up into a document, which, on 17 February 2026, was read to him. approved, and duly signed, despite him having forgotten what he had dictated the day before.”
