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ICC rejects Prosecution request for Duterte’s keys, allows access to other items

Published by Ellen on July 4, 2026

The International Criminal Court Trial Chamber III, which presides over the trial of former president Rodrigo Duterte, has rejected the request of Prosecution for the keys taken from him when he was arrested and brought to The Hague on March 12 last year, stating that access to them is “neither necessary nor proportionate.“

In its decision, the Chamber said that the Prosecution failed to state the relevance of the keys to the proceedings on the charge of crimes against humanity that Duterte is facing, noting that it did “not specify to what items the keys relate to, nor how such items may provide evidence that are necessary for the investigation.”

Escudero to preside over Sara’s impeachment trial

Published by Ellen on June 9, 2026

Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, whose defection from the Cayetano bloc broke the impasse in the Senate leadership struggle in favor of the Gatchalian-led group, will preside over the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, which is set to begin on July 6, a highly reliable source said.

The source stressed Escudero will not be Senate president.

The vindication of former deputy ombudsman Melchor Arthur H. Carandang

Published by Ellen on May 7, 2026

It was justice long delayed, but still heartening to see abuse of power censured.

In her ponencia voiding the 2019 dismissal of then deputy ombudsman Melchor Arthur Carandang, Supreme Court Associate Justice Filomena D. Singh, a Duterte appointee, warned of the dangers of “abuse of power.”

“The rule of law requires that those tasked with scrutinizing authority remain insulated from it, lest oversight become illusory and the constitutional design of checks and balances give way to political expediency.”

She underscored that an earlier Supreme Court decision “unequivocally recognized the ombudsman as the proper disciplinary authority over the deputy ombudsman.”

In English, please

Published by Ellen on February 17, 2026

Following the case of former president Rodrigo Duterte before the International Criminal Court means wading through all submissions and statements that can intimidate non-lawyers.

Covering the Duterte case also requires seeking information and insights from all sides, online and offline.

One steady source of updates on Duterte is the Meta (formerly Facebook) vlog Alvin and Tourism. It is run by Alvin Dave Sarzate, a Filipino based in The Netherlands and a Duterte loyalist. His Facebook page has 1.7 million followers. Several times a week, he posts updates through interviews with family members who visit the former president at the Scheveningen penitentiary.

I found the comments on Alvin’s post about the Feb. 13 statement of Duterte’s British-Israeli lawyer, Nicholas Kaufman, particularly revealing. The statement dealt with the release of the names of the former president’s alleged co-perpetrators in the crimes against humanity case linked to Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.

Duterte’s lies catch up with him at ICC

Published by Ellen on February 9, 2026

Less than two weeks before the scheduled hearings for the confirmation of charges against former president Rodrigo Duterte at the International Criminal Court, his lawyer is still trying to stop them from going forward.

Despite the Jan. 23 ruling of the Pre-Trial Chamber that the soon-to-be 81-year-old Duterte is fit to stand trial, his counsel, Nicholas Kaufman, insists that his client is “enfeebled.”

In an appeal filed Feb. 5 reiterating the indefinite adjournment of the hearings, Kaufman argued that the chamber committed substantial errors of fact and law when it declined to consider the medical report submitted by experts hired by Duterte. “The Medical Report detailed Mr Duterte’s lack of executive functioning, sustained planning capacity, and rapid decision-making—to say nothing of his enfeebled physical state—that would make it impossible for him to evade custody,” Kaufman said.

A dangerous precedent in Venezuela, and why Filipinos should care

Published by Ellen on January 5, 2026

Hours after United States forces invaded Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, early Saturday (Jan. 3) in an operation codenamed Operation Absolute Resolve, CNN cited sources saying President Donald Trump intends for the United States to “run the country” until a “judicious transition” takes place.

CNN further reported that Washington plans to seize Venezuela’s vast oil reserves, a move that appears to confirm what Maduro has long claimed: that control of oil, not democracy or drugs, is at the heart of Trump’s fixation on Venezuela.

According to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Venezuela holds about 303 billion barrels of oil, roughly one-fifth of the world’s proven reserves, the largest on the planet.

International alarm

The response from the international community was swift. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, through spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, warned that “independently of the situation in Venezuela, these developments constitute a dangerous precedent.”

“He’s deeply concerned that the rules of international law have not been respected,” Dujarric added.

Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter is unequivocal: All members shall refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

Was Zaldy Co inspired by Vincenzo’s underground vault?

Published by Ellen on December 26, 2025

(Note: Image for this column was produced with the help of Google Gemini.)

The revelation by Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla about the construction of a five-level basement vault in the Forbes Park home of former Ako Bicol Party-list representative Zaldy Co makes us wonder if he got the idea of having an underground storage place to keep his loot from the Korean drama, Vincenzo.

In an interview with Karen Davila on ANC on Dec. 23, Remulla said the structure was not designed for parking. “It’s not for cars. It’s for money,” he said flatly.

Co, now a fugitive and reported to be in Portugal, chaired the powerful House Appropriations Committee from 2022 to 2025.
Remulla said with the enormous amount that Co accumulated from government funds through fraudulent means, “there’s no way he could deposit that in Philippine banks.”

The house design, Remulla said, and accounts from construction workers suggest the basement vault was intended for cash storage. Fire, after all, spreads upward. So the money was to be kept at the lowest point of the house, fully waterproofed, to survive both flames and floods. “They made it water proof to make it safe,” Remulla added.

Why Sara wants to be president now

Published by Ellen on November 29, 2025

Vice President Sara Duterte’s declaration of her readiness to assume the presidency is actually a desperate ploy to save herself. Seventy days from now (Nov. 27), she will again be a subject for impeachment.

Without Chiz Escudero as Senate president to manipulate the process in her favor and the possible absence of Sen. Ronaldo Dela Rosa (who is expected to be in detention at The Hague by then), it is the position of the vice president that is likely to be vacated soon, not the presidency.

Although the vice president is not immune from suit, the Constitution provides that the vice president, like the president, the members of the Supreme Court, the members of the Constitutional Commissions, and the Ombudsman, “may be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, or betrayal of public trust.”

If Duterte is ousted as vice president by impeachment, that would spell the end of her political career because she would be disqualified from holding any office in the country. She would be open to charges, some of them enumerated in the Articles of Impeachment that the House of Representatives transmitted to the Senate in February.

Senators fight for survival, to hell with public accountability

Published by Ellen on October 5, 2025

Sen. Alan Cayetano, Sen. Pia Cayetano, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, and other senators at the start of Senate plenary session. Photo by Bullit Marquez for VERA Files.

As I write this column Sunday afternoon, the latest information I got was that Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano does not have 11 senators for his Senate presidency bid that would convince the Villar brother-sister team to defect and complete a change of leadership.

Rumors have been swirling the past few days about the unrest in the Senate brought about by the horrifying revelations in the Ping Lacson-led Blue Ribbon Committee investigating anomalies in flood control projects that resulted in government losses reaching trillions of pesos (that’s 12 zeros). At least three incumbent and two former senators have been named. Names of some members of the House of Representatives have also been mentioned, notably former House speaker Martin Romualdez and resigned Bicol Ako party list representative and former chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Zaldy Co.

Na- 1-2-3

Published by Ellen on June 8, 2025

Na 1-2-3 is a Filipino slang expression for “You have been had”. Naloko ka.

That’s what many feel Senate President Chiz Escudero is trying to pull something on the Filipino people with his dilly-dallying tactics on the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Activist priest, Fr. Flavie Villanueva, SVD, who runs Program Paghilum (Healing), which helps widows and orphans of extra-judicial killings during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs get justice and rebuild their lives, sent me a message last Wednesday that he too deposited P123 to the controversial BPI joint account of Rodrigo and Sara Duterte after reading my column that I deposited P100 to confirm that it is still active.

Why P123?

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