3 hours ago
1
Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!
Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.
Visit Suniway.ph to learn
Bella Cariaso - The Philippine Star
September 14, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Detained former president Rodrigo Duterte’s defense team is making a baseless claim of his “deteriorating cognitive condition” in order to secure an interim release from the International Criminal Court, an ICC-accredited lawyer said yesterday.
In an interview over radio dzMM, Joel Butuyan, president of the Center for International Law, noted that no less than Duterte’s children publicly stated that the jailed ex-leader is doing well.
“For me, the heaviest evidence is the behavioral evidence of Mr. Duterte. We can see this in the statements of relatives who visited him. His children were interviewed several times. They said Mr. Duterte is OK. He even joked with them. They talked about the past, present and future. He said he has no regrets in what he did and he’s willing to face whatever the consequences are,” Butuyan said.
The ICC on Thursday night released the public redacted version of the defense request for the indefinite adjournment of the proceedings.
“Mr. Duterte knows what’s happening and he knows what he did, so I think there’s no basis in what doctors are saying that he is mentally unfit,” Butuyan added.
In the request originally filed on Aug. 18, the defense claimed that Duterte “is not fit to stand trial as a result of cognitive impairment in multiple domains.”
“The strong evidence (against Duterte) comes from people who are the most biased in favor of the former president because these are his own children and the fact that they are practically attesting to the mental fitness of their father, it says a lot. I think it trumps the medical findings of what doctors are saying,” Butuyan said.
He added that the latest move of Duterte’s legal team is only a delaying tactic after previous motions were denied.
“They want to almost disqualify everyone. They tried to disqualify the judges. They tried to disqualify the ICC because they said there’s no jurisdiction. They tried to disqualify the prosecutor. Now that there’s no result, they are disqualifying Mr. Duterte from undergoing trial so it’s like an invocation of technicalities to stop the trial and witnessing of the victims in the ICC,” Butuyan said.
According to him, the families of the victims of Duterte’s war on drugs are disappointed amid further trial delay.
“The appeal of the victims is that it (confirmation of charges of hearing of Duterte) should continue and there should be no delay in this trial. The victims have been waiting for a long time to get justice. It’s been almost 10 years since the recent killings in our country. Close to 30,000 people were killed. If their client is innocent, evidence should be laid down so that the fight should be on evidence and not technicalities,” he added.
Butuyan added that the appeal of Nicholas Kaufman to President Marcos to allow Duterte to return to the Philippines is just a political move and not part of the trial.
“That’s a political action. They’re just trying to keep the interest of the DDS (diehard Duterte supporters) because it will be a rallying point in the run-up to the 2028 elections. The court, the ICC, will decide if he will return to the Philippines and it’s unlikely to happen because we are no longer ICC member,” he noted.
According to ICC Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang, statements made by Vice President Sara Duterte, as well as other members of the Duterte clan, demonstrate why the former president should remain in detention in The Hague.
In a recent filing to oppose the renewed request for an interim release, Niang stressed that “the rejection of the legitimacy of a court’s jurisdiction over a suspect may be a factor” to justify continued detention.
“Mr. Duterte’s family members have continued to reject the legitimacy of his legal proceedings before the Court. For example, on 19 July 2025, Sara Duterte, the current Vice President of the Philippines, spoke in front of a crowd in The Hague and was interviewed afterwards,” Niang told the pre-trial judges.
“During this event, she repeated the claim that Mr Duterte was ‘kidnapped’ by the ICC and stated that it was ‘illegal’ to bring him to the Court. She also told supporters, supposedly in jest, that she had discussed breaking Mr. Duterte out of the ICC Detention Unit with a colleague,” he added.
Niang also cited Sara’s accusations that the ICC colluded with the Philippine government in the case against her father.
The Vice President was also quoted blaming the ICC and the Dutch government over her father’s arrest and detention.
“Similarly, on 19 August 2025, Sara Duterte was quoted in the media as stating that Mr. Duterte had told her ‘repeatedly’ that if granted interim release, he wished to ‘return to his hometown’ of Davao City in the Philippines – the same city where he reportedly pledged to ‘double’ the killings the ‘moment [he] return[s]’ if elected mayor,” read the prosecutor’s filing.
“Mr. Duterte’s desire to return to Davao City, if granted interim release, echoes his family’s stated intention to ensure his return to the Philippines,” it added.
Niang said these statements demonstrate a pattern of the Duterte family’s refusal to accept the legitimacy of the legal proceedings and should factor in the decision on his request for interim release.
He stressed that allowing interim release to the former president will “provide him with greater access to his associates and family who are actively attempting to interfere with the proceedings against him.”
In response, defense counsel Nicholas Kaufman maintained that the words of other people “do not indicate that he is liable to flee justice.”
In addition to the request for interim release, the former president’s camp is also pushing for the indefinite adjournment of the proceedings, claiming that he is not fit to stand trial. — Janvic Mateo
