Duterte: Why am I being arrested?
FORMER president Rodrigo Duterte questioned the basis of the arrest order of the International Criminal Court.
Duterte was whisked to the Kalayaan Lounge of Villamor Air Base after he was served the ICC arrest order upon arrival yesterday at Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport from Hong Kong.
A social media post from Sen. Christopher Go showed Duterte accompanied by former executive secretary Salvador Medialdea and Duterte’s lawyer, Martin Delgra III.
While at Kalayaan Lounge, the former president demanded a copy of the basis of his arrest, saying he was deprived of his liberty.
“What is the basis for my detention? So, what is the law and what is the crime that I committed? Show to me now the legal basis for my being here as apparently, I was brought here not of my own volition. It’s somebody else’s” he said.
“May I know the reason why? Have you read the documents or at least have you read the case at the time you made the arrest so that you would be guided to what you should know?” he asked the arresting team which included CIDG Director Nicolas Torre.
Before disembarking from the plane, Duterte said: “You will just have to kill me, kung hindi ako papayag kung, kakampi ka d’yan sa mga puti (You will just have to kill me [because] I do not agree that you will [arrest me and] side with the foreigners),” he said.
Medialdea said Duterte was not informed of the reason for his arrest. He also slammed the arresting team for obeying an order from the ICC, insisting that the Philippines is no longer under the jurisdiction of the international court after the Duterte administration withdrew from the Rome Statute.
“Hindi ba kayo naa-ano na ganito ginagawa natin? Sumusunod tayo sa isang entity na hindi na tayo miyembro, nag-withdraw na tayo (Aren’t you bothered that we are doing this? We are obeying an order from an entity in which we are not a member anymore, have withdrawn from) … Sir, you are the Prosecutor General you know how to exercise due process… Before you can even file charges, you have to file a complaint, we have to file a counter-affidavit. Without doing those procedural process, here we are serving the questionable warrant of arrest,” Medialdea said.
In an interview with SMNI from Hong Kong before flying back to Manila, Duterte said he may have done some things that are not to the liking of some people “but I did it for my country.”
Duterte said he did not enrich himself or his family during the six years he was president, adding he did not add any structures in his house in Davao City or bought a new vehicle which may show that he amassed money while in Malacañang.
Duterte and his family were in Hong Kong last Sunday attending a thanksgiving event of overseas Filipino workers. The event was organized by the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
‘UNLAWFUL’
Former chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo said Duterte’s arrest was unlawful because the PNP allegedly did allow at least one of his lawyers to meet him at the airport.
“He was deprived of legal representation at the time of his arrest. The PNP did not have a hard copy of the warrant of arrest. By not allowing one of his lawyers to meet him, the arresting team could avoid being asked if they have the hard copy of the arrest warrant,” Panelo said.
He added that the arrest was also illegal because it came from the ICC which he described as a “spurious source” as he insisted that it has no jurisdiction over the Philippines.
“The government action will make the arresting team as well as the public officials ordering the arrest criminally liable,” Panelo said. — With Jocelyn Montemayor
