THE International Criminal Court (ICC) Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) has disclosed the summary and details of charges it has filed against former president Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte, including 49 murder and attempted murder cases involving 78 victims, which he allegedly committed or caused to be committed when he was mayor of Davao City and president of the Philippines.
The OTP, now headed by Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang, categorized the charges as crimes against humanity.
The prosecution team disclosed the details of the charges in a redacted filing entitled, “Document Containing the Charges,” that was submitted to the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber 1 on September 22, 2025 (Netherlands time), or a day before the 80-year old Duterte was originally scheduled to face the chamber for the confirmation of charges hearing.
The Pre-Trial Chamber has postponed the confirmation of charges hearing while it is verifying the statement of Duterte’s defense that the former president is not fit to stand the rigors of trial due to his deteriorating health condition, particularly due to cognitive impairment.
Based on its redacted submission, the OTP said Duterte should be held criminally liable for (1) murder as a crime against humanity for the death of 19 victims between 2013 to 2016 when he was the mayor of Davao City; (2) murder as a crime against humanity for the killing of 14 “high-value targets” between 2016 and 2017 when he was the president; and (3) murder and attempted murder as crimes against humanity for the deaths of 45 victims who were killed during barangay clearance operations across the Philippines in 2018 when he was the president.
The document said the “actual scale of victimization during the charged period was significantly greater, as reflected in the widespread nature of the attack.”
In the same submission, the OTP listed Duterte’s “essential contributions” to the alleged crimes against humanity as the following: designing and disseminating the policy to neutralize alleged criminals, both in his role as mayor of Davao City, and also during his presidential campaign and as president, including the endorsement of the anti-illegal drugs campaign “Double Barrel;” establishing and overseeing the Davao Death Squad; instructing and authorizing violent acts, including murder, to be committed against suspected criminals, including alleged drug dealers and users; providing personnel and other necessary logistical resources such as weapons, including those to be used in the execution of the crimes. Appointing key personnel to positions which were crucial to the execution of the crimes; offering financial incentives and promotions to police officers and hitmen to kill suspected criminals; creating and maintaining a system in which perpetrators knew they would be protected, including through promises of immunity and shielding perpetrators from investigations and prosecution; making public statements authorizing, condoning and encouraging the killing of suspected criminals, both as Davao City mayor and Philippine president; authorizing State actors to take part in the anti-drugs campaign and temporarily revoking such authorization to placate public outcry; and publicly naming individuals and holding up charts from lists of alleged criminals, including so-called high-value targets, some of whom were subsequently killed.
It noted Duterte’s appointment of his co-perpetrators from Davao City to high-level national positions, which it said allowed them to exercise control over “physical perpetrators,” and the expanded implementation of their “Common Plan” to cover the entire country, not only Davao City.
The Common Plan, it said, is an agreement to “neutralize” suspected criminals, through violent crimes including murder, engaged in the using, selling and producing illegal drugs.
It OTP said that Duterte’s group allegedly “established a network of perpetrators” that included officers from the PNP, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the National Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Corrections; and non-police assets and hitmen that comprised the “National Network” that operated like the Davao Death Squad that allegedly killed alleged criminals.
Some of the victims, it said, were included in the “PRRD List” (referring to the initials of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte), with targets categorized by tiers 1 to 5, according to their assigned “values.”
“Police who killed a target on the list could access a covert reward system, which existed outside of the regular formal rewards system, and receive a payment ranging from 50,000 to one million Philippine pesos, depending on the level of the target,” it added.
The prosecution panel said Duterte was aware of the “factual circumstances” which allowed him to have “joint control over the crimes” committed.
It said the attacks were sanctioned by the State. “The policy was originally developed by Duterte and his close (mostly police) associates in Davao City and implemented at the local level, and then expanded to the national level in 2016,” it said.
The attacks, it said, were “widespread and carried out on a large scale and frequent basis, victimizing a significant number of civilians over a broad geographic area and a prolonged period of time.”
“During the mayoral period, it occurred in Davao City for a period of more than four years. During the presidential period, the attacks expanded to locations across the Philippines for a period of almost three years. The attacks included thousands of killings, which were perpetrated consistently throughout the charged period,” it said. – With Wendell Vigilia
‘WARNED’
Rep. Leila de Lima said Duterte has no one to blame but himself, saying the “future we warned him about is now the present we are witnessing.”
“Duterte did not lack warnings and advice from the Philippine human rights community about his future accountability. He ignored all these warnings at his own peril,” she said in a statement. “His detention and indictment for the drug war killings are the direct consequence of his own actions. As we have said again and again, he has no one to blame but himself. His co-conspirators will follow him to the Hague soon enough.”
De Lima said the filing of charges for the crime against humanity of murder against Duterte “serves as a milestone in the process of exacting accountability for the crimes committed in Davao City by the DDS and during the drug war all over the Philippines by the so-called ‘national network’ of death squads, both created and organized by mayor, then President Duterte.”
She added: “The wheels of justice started to grind as early as the OTP’s declaration of a preliminary examination of the drug war killings in 2018. As early as then we already warned Duterte to stop the killings or he will inevitably face justice before the ICC, no matter how far off in the future.”
