SEN. Imee Marcos yesterday called on the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate ranking Cabinet and police officials in connection to the alleged illegal arrest and turnover of former president Rodrigo to the International Criminal Court (ICC), where he is facing trial for crimes of humanity for the extrajudicial killings related to his administration’s brutal drug campaign.
Marcos, who is the chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Relations, made the call during a press conference at the Senate.
The senator said the Ombudsman should investigate Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, Special Ambassador on Transnational Crime Markus Lacanilao, PNP chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil, and CIDG chief Maj. Gen. Nicolas Torre III for the unlawful apprehension of Duterte last March 11.
Justice Secretary Remulla said he is not afraid to be investigated by and charged before the Ombudsman since his conscience is clear and that what the government did was legal.
Marcos said the justice secretary supposedly violated RA 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act “for sanctioning/causing an invalid administrative arrest” on Duterte, which she said was in contravention with the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Board of Commissioners of the Bureau of Immigration and the jail warden of the BI detention center vs. Yuan Wenle.
She said he may also be held liable for usurpation of judicial functions and grave misconduct and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of public service.
On the other hand, she said Interior secretary Remulla is liable for arbitrary detention, violation of RA 3019 for inducing or persuading Torre and Marbil “to perform an act in violation of laws, rules, and regulations or an offense in connection with the official duties of the latter.”
She added that the interior secretary also allegedly guilty of grave misconduct and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of public service.
Marbil should be held liable for arbitrary detention, violation of the anti-graft law for reportedly persuading Torre to violate the law, and grave misconduct and conduct prejudicial to the best of public service, Marcos said.
She added that Torre can be made answerable for arbitrarily detaining Duterte and former Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, violation of RA 7438 for not allowing Duterte to be visited by her daughter Vice President Sara Duterte and “for forcing FPRRD’s [Duterte] lawyers to leave him.”
Marcos also said Torre is liable for violation of RA 3019, and grave misconduct and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of public service.
Lacanilao should also be probed for usurpation of official functions under Article 177 of the Revised Penal Code, perjury under Article 183 of the RPC, and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.
Marcos said her recommendation will be part of the final committee report that she will submit to the Senate plenary once she terminates her panel’s investigation.
The report has to be signed by a majority of the committee members before this is endorsed to the plenary for discussion.
The committee’s members include Senators Joseph Victor Ejercito, Mark Villar, Nancy Binay, Alan Peter Cayetano, Ronald dela Rosa, Sherwin Gatchalian, Christopher Go, Lito Lapid, Loren Legarda, Robin Padilla, Grace Poe, Ramon Revilla Jr., Cynthia Villar, Juan Miguel Zubiri, and Risa Hontiveros. Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Francis Tolentino, and Aquilino Pimentel III are ex-officio members.
Dela Rosa, Go and Padilla are known allies of Duterte.
‘NOT AFRAID’
Justice Secretary Remulla maintained that the government’s actions were lawful.
“Hindi ko nga alam kung totoong committee report na yun lumalabas o ano ito. So, welcome development. Hindi naman tayo natatakot dyan (I don’t know if the recommenation is part of the committee report. But it’s a welcome development. I am not afraid of it),” he said.
“Ginawa namin yung dapat gawin. It’s for the best, it’s the best, to our best judgment… for the country,” he added.
Remulla has told the Marcos committee that he provided the clearances for the arrest of the 80-year old former president and his immediate transfer to the ICC.
Malacanang has previously said Duterte was arrested not because it is cooperating with the ICC but because it has a responsibility to assist the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), which was tapped by the ICC for the former president’s arrest.
‘POLTICALLY MOTIVATED’
Also during the press conference, Marcos insisted that Duterte’s arrest was “politically motivated,” saying there was “a clear pattern where major political incidents precede significant statements and actions of the administration relative to the ICC.”
On Monday, Marcos alleged there was a “group effort” to bring down the Duterte family, which she said supposedly started on May 2024.
Yesterday, she said the Dutertes started to earn the ire of the Marcos administration after the former president criticized the people’s initiative, which members of the House of Representatives launched to collect signatures for Charter Change.
She said that after Duterte attended the House quad committee hearing on November 11 last year, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said that local authorities suddenly announced that the administration would consider “cooperating with the Interpol if the ICC seeks the intervention of the international anti-crime body.”
She also said that “after the pro-administration congressmen were forced to tone down the narrative to impeach VP Sara because of the massive peace rally by the INC (Iglesia ni Cristo) on January 13, 2025, the administration responded by concocting ‘Oplan Tugis’ or Operation Pursuit followed by the statement of the secretary of justice that the Marcos administration is open to sitting down with the ICC to discuss certain areas of cooperation.”
She alleged the arrest of the former president was “part of a whole-of-government effort to bring down the Dutertes.”
Marcos said that “any doubt” that the arrest and turnover of Duterte to the ICC was motivate by politics “was put to rest” in a supposed action plan of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) entitled “Mid-Election Final Campaign Sprint Action Plan” dated April 22, 2025, which supposedly described in detail the accomplishments of “Oplan Horus,” an operation launched sometime in April 2024 designed to bring down the Duterte family.
She said the action plan has other sub-sections which discussed “how to attack” using the PNP, the House of Representatives working together with former senator Antonio Trillanes IV, a staunch critic of the Dutertes who filed cases against the former president before the ICC.
Marcos said another committee finding was that “there is a coordinated attempt to coverup the details and motives behind the arrest of FPRRD” as shown by the flip-flopping statement of Interior Secretary Remulla that the arrest of the former president was a group effort, but later took it back as he invoked executive privilege during the first committee hearing held on March 20.”
She said another proof that there is a cover-up was when Torre stopped from further giving out details on the arrest of Duterte when he invoked the “sub judice ruling” during the hearing, and when Bersamin said that Cabinet officials will no longer attend the hearings due to executive privilege.
“This conscious effort on the part of the administration to bury the truth became all the more clear when, in an unprecedented move, the Senate President (Francis Escudero) refused to release subpoenas he had already signed,” she said.
She said the coverup did not end at the Senate hearings since she has supposedly received information that the administration has launched a “communication plan” purportedly to divert the peoples’ attention away from the former president’s arrest to the issues in the West Philippine Sea and “the alleged disinformation activities of China” by hiring a local public relations firm to serve as its troll farm.
“Ultimately, the administration plans on linking the rising pro-Duterte sentiment with this alleged disinformation campaign,” she added.
President Marcos gave a short reaction to his sisters, tirades.
In an ambush interview at the sidelines of the 46th Commencement Exercises of the Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) in Camp General Mariano N. Castañeda in Silang in Cavite, the president simply said: “Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. I disagree.” – With Ashzel Hachero and Jocelyn Montemayor
