The one thing that spooks President Duterte fiercely is the case of crime against humanity brought against him before the International Criminal Court in The Hague which gave him the dubious distinction of being the first Southeast Asian leader to be charged before the ICC.
Rare is his public speaking engagements that he does not take a jab at ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda who announced last Feb. 8 that she has started a preliminary examination of the information filed in connection with the extrajudicial killings under the Duterte presidency.
And when Duterte is agitated, he spews out fake news. That has rubbed on his Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo who immediately issued an incoherent statement last Thursday denouncing the decision of Bensouda to continue assessing the information filed with her office against Duterte.