Skip to content

Month: February 2026

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.

Continue readingIn English, please

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.

Continue readingDuterte’s lies catch up with him at ICC