Multiple social media posts are misrepresenting a statement submitted by a Japanese nongovernmental organization to the United Nations Human Rights Council regarding the crimes against humanity case of former president Rodrigo Duterte at the International Criminal Court.
Some netizens called it an “intervention” from the UN itself, while others described it as a “lawsuit” against President Ferdinand Marcos and the ICC. Both claims are wrong.
Claim 1: UN ‘intervenes’ in Duterte’s ICC case
On May 20, a Facebook page published a composite photo that included:
- a written statement submitted by the Japan-based NGO International Career Support Association (ICSA) to the UNHRC,
- photos of Duterte and Marcos,
- and an unrelated image of Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev delivering a speech in 2021 at the UNHRC.
The graphic carried this text:
“UNITED NATION (sic) NAKIALAM NA SA PINAS FINISH KANA P-MARCOS (The United Nations has intervened in the Philippines. You’re finished now, President Marcos)”
The page posted the graphic in three pro-Duterte FB groups, with captions in Filipino that state that the “UN has intervened in Philippine politics,” “Marcos is finished,” and that “the UN has accused the Marcos administration of using the ICC against Duterte.”
From May 20 to 22, the same graphic was republished by several FB pages and users, with some duplicating the captions in full or in part. Other netizens also tweaked the composite photo, adding a different picture of Duterte and more speculations overlaid on it.
FACT
This is not true. The posts merely cited the ICSA’s statement and did not offer other evidence to support its claim.
The ICC is not a UN organization, although the tribunal can cooperate with the intergovernmental body “[w]hen a situation is not within the Court’s jurisdiction.” On April 22, the ICC’s appeals chamber already confirmed the court’s jurisdiction in the Duterte case over the alleged crimes against humanity connected to his drug war.
It is the International Court of Justice, not the ICC, that serves as the principal judicial organ of the UN.
Claim 2: ‘Case’ against Marcos, ICC filed at UNHRC
On May 20 as well, a man on YouTube posted a reaction video to an FB post by the pro-Duterte content creator Claire Contreras – also known as Maharlika – about ICSA’s statement. The man’s 10-minute clip carried the title:
“The END is NEAR? PBBM SINAMPAHAN KASO sa UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL (Is the end near? Case filed against PBBM before the UN Human Rights Council)”
Another YouTube channel grabbed portions from that video, then posted it as new content with the headline:
“UNITED NATIONS SINAMPAHAN NG KASO SI MARC0S JR! WALANG TAKAS SI VANGAG DITO! SINAMPAL NG KAHIHIYAN (The United Nations has filed a case against Marcos Jr. He can’t escape this! Slapped with shame)!”
Meanwhile, several graphics posted on FB which featured ICSA’s statement claimed that a lawsuit against the president had been lodged before the UNHRC. One FB page further claimed that both the “Marcos administration and the ICC” were sued.
FACT
This is a made-up allegation. No such case against Marcos and the ICC can be found on UNHRC’s official website.
ICSA’s submission misrepresented
The posts were referring to a three-page document allegedly submitted before the UNHRC by a certain “Shinichi Fujiki” of ICSA. The first page indicates that the UN Secretary General received the written statement on May 19.
VERA Files Fact Check has reached out to the UNHRC to verify the legitimacy of the document. In a June 1 email, the council’s Civil Society Team said “[t]he Secretariat is currently processing NGO Written Statements received for the [62nd session of the HRC],” adding that “the published ones will be made available gradually in the next weeks on HRC Extranet webpage.”
Contrary to claims circulating online, the filing is not a legal case against Marcos and the ICC, nor an attempt by the UN itself to “intervene” in Duterte’s case in The Hague.
It is merely a written statement, which may be submitted by any NGO accredited to participate as an Observer in the UNHRC’s sessions – a status held by ICSA. These statements must be relevant to the work of the UNHRC Advisory Committee, and are used by NGOs to express their views on human rights issues.
In it, ICSA said Duterte’s detention was not “an act of international justice” but a political move by the Marcos administration to allegedly disrupt the Dutertes’ influence in the 2028 elections. ICSA also requested the UNHRC to demand for Duterte’s provisional release pending his trial.
According to the Japan-U.S. Feminist Network for Decolonization, a network of activists and scholars resisting both Japanese and United States colonialisms, ICSA is known to provide a platform for “far-right Japanese nationalists and comfort women deniers at various [UN] meetings,” given its special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council.
Rights Report Philippines described Fujiki as “a Japanese nationalist activist and businessman with a documented record of using international forums to deny wartime sexual slavery, discredit accountability mechanisms, and deploy methods that scholars have compared…to Holocaust denialism.”
The inaccurate claims surfaced the same day Fujiki posted a copy of the written statement on his FB account. The Department of Foreign Affairs described the claims in the statement as “baseless,” anticipating that “no action will be taken on it by the [HRC] or the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.”
At least 17 posts from FB users and pages, including Dodoyte 2.0 YT (created on June 11, 2022 as Junrey Desert Driver), Andeboy Project 1M (March 4, 2017) and Dric TV (Oct. 4, 2023), published the spurious claims. They collectively amassed 22,377 reactions; 3,990 comments and 3,371 shares. The two YouTube videos with untrue claims uploaded by The General’s Viewpoint (Dec. 31, 2023) and NEWS UPDATE FILES (Jan. 31, 2022) garnered a total of 12,400 reactions; 1,347 comments and 169,968 views.
