The children of former president Rodrigo R. Duterte have reiterated their plea before the Supreme Court (SC) to order the repatriation of their father to the Philippines from The Hague in Netherlands where he has been detained by the International Criminal Court (ICC) since March last year.

They cited landmark rulings handed down by the SCs of both the Philippines and the United States on almost similar cases that would favor the repatriation of the father.

Duterte was arrested last March 11 and flown to The Hague on the same day. The ICC issued the arrest order on charges of crimes against humanity in his war against illegal drugs as Davao City mayor and president.

The Duterte siblings’ plea was contained in the memoranda filed before the SC by Davao City Rep. Paolo “Polong” Duterte, Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte, and Veronica “Kitty” Duterte.

The filing of the memorandum was required by the SC on the petitions for habeas corpus filed by Duterte’s children after their father’s arrest and turnover to the ICC.

Paolo and Veronica submitted their memorandum last Monday, Jan. 5, while Sebastian’s memorandum was filed last Dec. 29.

They reiterated as illegal and unconstitutional the arrest, surrender, and continued detention of their father by the ICC.

In their memoranda, they cited the US SC’s landmark case on Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), a writ of habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the US at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba.

When the case reached the US SC, the Duterte’s children said that the US High Court resolved the issue on whether the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus apply to a foreign citizen held at Guantanamo.

The US SC, they said, resolved the issue in favor of Boumediene and held that the writ of habeas corpus is meant to protect individual freedom.

“Applying this logic to the present case: while FPRRD is physically held in the Netherlands, his detention is a direct consequence of the respondents’ (Philippine government) initiation and continued cooperation with the ICC. Because the respondents retain the legal and diplomatic capacity to demand his return or challenge the surrender that they themselves facilitated, they maintain constructive custody,” Sebastian said in his memorandum.

“To hold otherwise would allow the State to evade constitutional scrutiny simply by transporting a citizen across a border – a result that would render the privilege of the writ illusory,” he stressed.

Veronica, on the other hand, cited the 2025 U.S. case of Noem v. Abrego Garcia, the 1919 Philippine case of Villavicencio v. Lukban, and the successful efforts to bring former congressman Arnulfo Teves Jr., back to the Philippines from Timor-Leste to prove that their habeas corpus petitions cannot be considered moot and academic.

She said that in the case of immigrant Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia --an El Salvador national residing in Maryland, USA with protected status -- was arrested without a warrant and forcibly transported by immigration agents of the US Department of Homeland Security to El Salvador, where he was detained in a maximum-security prison.

Garcia’s lawyer and members of his family filed a case before the US District Court of Maryland against Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem and others and pointed out that his removal to El Salvador violated the due process clause of the US Constitution and applicable immigration laws. He prayed for the issuance of habeas corpus.

The Maryland District Court held that it retained jurisdiction, and granted a preliminary injunction ordering the defendants “... to facilitate and effectuate the return” of Abrego Garcia to the US.

“The Abrego Garcia case does not only prove that the consolidated petitions are not moot, it also provides guidance on how overseas habeas corpus relief can be granted that honors the separation of powers,” Veronica’s memorandum stated.

In the landmark 1919 case of Villavicencio v. Lukban, the police – on orders of then Manila mayor Justo Lukban -- rounded up around 170 “women of ill repute,” and, without their consent, placed them aboard ships bound for Davao City.

The friends and family members of the women filed a habeas corpus petition before the SC.

Eventually, the SC ruled that the respondents in the case could not simply evade the habeas corpus writ by relocating those detained as it pointed out that if the respondents are within the Court’s jurisdiction, they may be compelled to undo the wrong inflicted.

“The same coercive power resides in this Honorable Court today: should the respondents plead inability to secure FPRRD’s return from the ICC, they must demonstrate exhaustive good-faith efforts such as diplomatic démarche, formal requests or motions to the ICC and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the like,” the Duterte siblings said.

“Anything less would expose them to contempt, for, as Villavicencio teaches, the power to commit the wrong necessarily entails the obligation to undo it,” they pointed out.

In the case of Paolo, he said the SC is duty-bound to resolve the petitions for habeas corpus on the merit since this is the first time in the Philippine history that its own government surrendered a former president to be tried by an international tribunal.

“It is of utmost public interest for the citizens of our Republic to know whether such arrest was lawful or not. In addition, the resolution of the instant case would help in the formulation of controlling principles to guide the bench, the bar, and the public, considering that this is a case of first impression,” he also said.

Earlier, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) had asked the SC to dismiss the petitions filed by the Duterte siblings “for being moot and for utter lack of merit.’

“The undisputed fact is that FPRRD is in the custody of the ICC at The Hague, the Netherlands. Because FPRRD is outside Philippine territory, any relief that may be granted by the Honorable Court would be ineffectual and without practical value, as it cannot be enforced beyond the country’s territorial jurisdiction,” Solicitor General Darlene Marie Berberabe said in her memorandum.

“It is precisely the impracticality of enforcing the relief sought which renders this case non-justiciable, as the lack of enforceable relief fails to satisfy the constitutional requirement of an ‘actual controversy’ necessary to trigger the Honorable Court’s power of judicial review,” Berberabe also said.