Vice President Sara Duterte wants the names of the alleged 30,000 victims under her father’s bloody “drug war” that left thousands of deaths due to extrajudicial killings.
Former president Rodrigo Duterte at his initial appearance hearing via video link on Friday, March 14, 2025, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. Also in the photo is his legal counsel, former executive secretary Salvador Medialdea. (ICC Photo)
“You have to prove that there were 30,000 victims. So, how can you prove systematic killings of 30,000 victims if you do not have the names of 30,000 victims?,” she said in an interview with reporters in The Hague over the weekend.
The official has been staying in the Netherlands since former president Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and deportation to The Hague after his arrest under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant on crimes against humanity of murder.
He is facing 43 counts of murder, which the ICC used to issue the warrant of arrest against him as they found probably cause there was systematic and state-sanctioned killings during the former president’s administration.
The Vice President raised questions on the 181 pieces of evidence presented by the prosecution to the defense, saying that it falls short of proving there were 30,000 deaths during her father’s reign.
“We have 181 pieces of evidence and we don’t even have 50 victims. This is 43 counts of murder, not even 50. So, where is the system there of killing thousands? Sorry, bobo 'yung abogado nila (their lawyer is stupid),” she said.
Police records showed that drug war deaths totaled to about 6,000, but various human rights groups have refuted this number and argued that the deaths could go as high as 30,000 because of extrajudicial and vigilante-style killings.
ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah explained earlier that the 43 counts of murder against the former president is not yet the “final number.”
“Well, the judges took that as a sample of the potential alleged crimes. They didn’t say this is the final number which is potentially still open to additional request from the prosecutor-judges,” he said. “They took only it as a sample purpose for the purpose of the arrest warrant and not as final charge.”
National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) lawyer Kristina Conti, who represents several victims, also said that there is no requirement to name every victim of the drug war to prove that the former president committed crimes against humanity.
She added that the 181 pieces of evidence questioned by the Vice President were just preliminary documents, and even cited the Nuremberg trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, which did not name all of the six million Jews slaughtered by the Nazi regime and their allies during the Second World War.
Duterte will face the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I for a confirmation of charges pre-trial hearing on Sept. 23.