When former executive secretary Salvador Medialdea spoke during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s first appearance before the International Criminal Court (ICC) last Friday, he wasn’t addressing the court. He was exploiting the situation to draw sympathy for his troubled friend and client.
After failing to stop Duterte’s surrender to ICC jurisdiction, Medialdea’s four-minute spiel about the former president’s supposed abduction was part of the shrewd tactics to gather support for the Dutertes, with the ultimate goal to unseat President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
While in custody at Villamor Air Base following his arrest at the airport on March 11, Duterte asked Maj. Gen. Nicolas Torre III, director of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, to tell government prosecutors “to ponder … seriously” on the possibility of his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, becoming president.
“Unang-una, I don’t know, but my family, lalo na si vice president, if bukas mag-presidente ‘yan, eh ‘di waswas tayong lahat dito, or on a longer term, kung tatakbo ‘yan, mananalo ‘yan dahil nga sa ginawa niyo tuloy,” Duterte said in a video shared on the Instagram account of his youngest daughter Veronica.
As tension heightened, Duterte’s former spokesperson Harry Roque, who was in hiding at the time, asked pro-Duterte vloggers to tell their followers to go to EDSA and gather to protest the former president’s arrest, which, he said, violates the country’s sovereignty and was unconstitutional.
A few hundred supporters showed up at the gates of the Villamor Air Base in Pasay City and in some urban centers, such as Davao City. On Saturday, a few thousands also gathered at Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila, protesting Duterte’s arrest and demanding his repatriation from The Hague, where he is being held at the Scheveningen detention facility.
When Medialdea spoke before the ICC about the “pure and simple kidnapping” of the former president in a “degrading fashion” and accused the court of striking an alliance with the Marcos administration, he took the risk of being censured. But his strongly worded “manifestation” was intended to rally support for Duterte.
Medialdea knew that Duterte’s first appearance hearing was on live streaming to the international audience. It was an opportune time to play on the emotions of people by portraying the former president as a victim of a power play.
“Two troubled entities struck an unlikely alliance. An incumbent president who wished to neutralize and choke the legacy of my client and his daughter, on [one] hand, and a troubled legal institution subject to delegitimization and desperate for a prize catch and a legal show today, on the other hand,” he said, but fell short of identifying Marcos and the ICC.
In so many words, he said Duterte, whom he described as “an elderly man with debilitating medical issues, hard of hearing and poor of sight,” did not deserve the treatment accorded him.
But the court rebuked him for the second time in one day. Before the initial hearing was convened, the chamber had already rejected two motions, including one seeking the postponement of the March 14 hearing that Medialdea filed earlier in the day.
During the hearing that lasted 27 minutes, Presiding Judge Iulia Motoc assured that the court was taking Duterte’s health as “very important” and said that “specific measures” had been taken with regard to his health issues.
Motoc also debunked Medialdea’s claim about Duterte’s illegal arrest, noting the court registry report that the former president “has been informed of his rights, including Articles 66 and 67 of the Rome Statute, and that he is aware of his rights and that he is also aware of the charges against him.”
“We have before us the report of the registry saying that he was also aware of the warrant of arrest in the English language and that he is very well-versed in the English language. Once again, you have the possibility of these charges being read in English, which was the case today,” she added.
Obviously, they lost the first round of the long ICC process, and so the Duterte camp is bringing their case to the streets and the virtual world.
All sorts of disinformation have been circulating on various social media platforms and wild accusations based on twisted or wrong information have been spread in pocket rallies of the Duterte supporters since the former president was arrested and brought to The Hague for trial.
The disinformation game plan now appears to have shifted to undermining the ICC, linking it to the leftist groups in the Philippines, and questioning its objectivity to destroy its credibility.
Indeed, desperate situations call for desperate measures.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
This column also appeared in The Manila Times.
