Vice President Sara Duterte on Thursday, March 20 maintained that her father was forcibly taken by the Philippine National Police (PNP) upon his arrival at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) from Hong Kong) on March 11, 2025 and was brought and detained at the Villamor Air Base.
Testifying virtually at the public hearing of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on the authorities’ enforcement of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) warrant of arrest on former president Rodrigo Duterte, the vice president insisted that the arrest was “patently illegal” without a valid warrant issued by a Philippine court.
Duterte also decried that her father’s arrest was without due process and is without any legal basis.
“If a former president can be taken without due process, what stops them from doing the same to any other Filipino? Therefore, we must dare to ask more questions. Under whose authority did the PNP act?” Duterte pointed this out when she read her formal statement to the panel.
“Why did it enforce a foreign warrant without the Philippine court order? Why didn't they at least bring PRRD before a judge as required by the Rome Statute itself? Even more disturbing is the silence of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP),” she lamented.
“Why did the AFP stand idly by while a former commander-in-chief was taken from a military base under questionable circumstances? How could they allow a foreign tribunal to override on our constitutional guarantees?” she further said.
“We have now lost a former president. I pray that we do not lose the country next,” she added.
Duterte insisted that allowing the ICC to enforce an arrest warrant to the former Philippine leader was the Marcos administration’s way of eradicating their political opponents.
“Alam naman natin lahat, at alam nila na mali ang ginawa nila. Ginawa nila iyon (We all know, and they also know that what they did was wrong). They did it) just to demolish political opponents,” she stressed.
“This is all about politics. The administration is using government resources, the ICC, to demolish the opposition,” she pointed out.
She also questioned if the government will exhaust all means to bring back the former president home to the country.
“Wala na tayong argument. Mali ang ginawa. Ang tanong ngayon, ano ang gagawin natin para maibalik ang dating Pangulo sa Pilipinas? Kasi, nag-iisa ako ngayon dito na gumagawa ng paraan para maibalik ang ating dating Pangulo sa ating bayan (We don’t have any more arguments. They did wrong. The question now is, what can we now do to bring back the former president back to the Philippines? Because, I now here alone trying to do everyting to bring back our former president to our country),” she said.