Tag: rodrigo duterte

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.

Impeachment trial to open Duterte’s joint bank accounts with VP Sara for scrutiny

Published by Ellen on November 21, 2024

Former president Rodrigo Duterte grabs microphone and aims to hit former senator Antonio Trillanes IV with it during the Nov. 13 quadcom hearing,

The apoplectic reaction of Rodrigo Duterte during the Nov. 13 hearing of the House quad committee when former senator Antonio Trillanes IV presented some contents of the former president’s bank accounts in the Bank of the Philippine Islands is not surprising at all.

Since the news on those bank accounts of Duterte and his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, were first published on April 28, 2016, the former president’s reaction has ranged from lying to more lying to more lying.

In the course of his endless lying, sometimes his mind trips and he blurts out the truth, such as when he said during the quadcom hearing that it is not impossible for his bank accounts to now hold even P5 billion.

Davao City’s ‘ghost employees’ early funders of Duterte’s EJKs

Published by Ellen on October 23, 2024

The House Quad Committee (Quadcom), which has uncovered gruesome information, in its investigation of extrajudicial killings (EJKs), is now into tracing the money trail that financed former president Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs.

Quadcom co-chairs Reps. Bienvenido “Benny” Abante Jr. and Dan Fernandez said that the mega-panel composed of the Committees on Dangerous Drugs, Public Order and Safety, Human Rights, and Public Accounts, will seek the assistance of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) in tracing the illicit transactions.

Former Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office General Manager Royina Garma, who also played a major role in Duterte’s bloody program, had given information on the rewards system which was patterned to Davao drug war template that she helped implement when she was a Station Commander in one of the police stations in Davao.

VP Sara, 2 senators named in ICC probe documents

Published by Ellen on July 23, 2023

Former president Rodrigo Duterte with daughter Vice President Sara and Sen. Bong Go in a 2019 photo when they attended the enthronement of Japanese Emperor Naruhito. Malacañang photo

Aside from former president Rodrigo Duterte, Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio and two incumbent senators were named in documents submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigating the killings related to the drug war during the previous administration and when Duterte was mayor of Davao City, a copy of the documents obtained by VERA Files shows.

The vice president’s name was mentioned as knowing and approving the killings when she was city mayor, a post that her father held for more than 20 years. Sara was mayor from 2010 to 2013, and from 2016 to 2022.

A person knowledgeable of the ICC probe said she could be issued a “summons” by the ICC. If she would not comply with the summons, she would be issued a warrant of arrest.

This is the first time the name of Sara was mentioned in the documents relevant to the ICC investigation.

Marcos’ PH roadshow and the ICC probe

Published by Ellen on February 1, 2023

If you listen closely to Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla’s strident reaction to the decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to resume the investigation into the killings related to Duterte’s war on drugs, he didn’t completely rule out allowing the ICC to come into the country.

“Definitely I do not welcome this move of theirs and I will not welcome them in the Philippines unless they make it clear that they will respect us in this regard,” he said in a press conference.

He added: “I will not stand for any of these antics that will question our status as a sovereign country. We will not accept that.”

Cha-Cha revival betrays Duterte’s desperation

Published by Ellen on January 17, 2021

Listening to President Duterte say that he is not interested in staying beyond June 30, 2022 reminds us of his denials about running for president in 2016. He didn’t even file his certificate of candidacy before the deadline set by the Commission on Elections, remember? He had to go through all the drama of substitution.

The proponents behind the renewed efforts for Charter Change in both the House of Representatives and the Senate are his minions. Would anyone believe that House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco and Senators Ronald de la Rosa and Francis Tolentino would do anything as serious as changing the Constitution without their Master’s imprimatur?

Truth catches up with Duterte’s controversial drug war on drugs

Published by Ellen on October 7, 2019

Senate hearing on Good Conduct Time Allowance law. Extreme right iin police officers’s uniform is PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde. Extreme left is Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, former chief of the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

It is poetic justice that President Duterte’s brutal drug war, on which he built his presidency, is unraveling not because of the efforts of those who oppose it but because of the greed and impunity of the people that he trusted to carry it out.

The hearing of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chaired by Sen. Richard Gordon started with the investigation of the anomalous implementation of the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) law which almost set free heinous crime convict Antonio Sanchez, former Calauan mayor who raped and killed a UP Los Baños student and her male friend in June 1993. The initial hearings exposed the incompetence of Bureau of Corrections officials led by former Marines officer Nicanor Faeldon, who is eternally trusted by Duterte.

One of the resource persons called by Gordon was Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong, former chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, to share the findings of the investigation his office conducted in 2014 when Sen. Leila de Lima, who is currently in prison on unproven illegal drugs charges , was justice secretary under the administration of Benigno Aquino III. The probe showed that It was discovered that some inmates continued to run their illegal drug operation from inside the prison.

Carpio says Duterte’s statement on passage of foreign ships violates UNCLOS

Published by Ellen on August 22, 2019

Chinese ships passing through Philippine waters first week of August 2019. Photo by The Armed Forces of the Philippines Western Mindanao Command.

Following reports by the military two weeks ago about five Chinese warships passing through Philippine waters, President Duterte last Tuesday issued a statement requiring all foreign vessels to notify Philippine authorities and to get clearance ahead of their passage.

Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo’s statement:

“To avoid misunderstanding in the future, the President is putting on notice that beginning today, all foreign vessels passing our territorial waters must notify and get clearance from the proper government authority well in advance of the actual passage. Either we get a compliance in a friendly manner or we enforce it in an unfriendly manner.”

This is another example of Duterte’s idiotic way of handling foreign relations especially concerning the conflict with China in the West Philippine Sea.

Advice to Panelo: Read before you speak

Published by Ellen on August 20, 2019

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo. Malacañang photo.

Had Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo read my column last Monday on President Duterte receiving cash gifts in millions of pesos on the 69th birthday, he should not have denied what the President has admitted a long time ago.

In his press briefing Aug. 19, ABS-CBN’s Pia Gutierrez asked for his comment on my column titled “Duterte gets gifts in multi-million pesos.”

I wrote that “On his 69th birthday, on March 28, 2014, seven deposits totalling P193,705,615.88 were credited to the joint account of then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte and his daughter Sara Z. Duterte in BPI, Julia Vargas branch in Ortigas Center. The first was in the amount of P55,131,747.32, followed by P41,721,035.62. Then four deposits in the amount of P20,000,000.00 each came in. The last deposit for the day was in the amount of P16,852,832.94.”