[Rappler’s Best] Showdown

What a breathtaking week it has been.

If you need catching up, here are answers to the most common questions about last week’s arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte ordered by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Everything you need to know is here. 

Now if you’re confused or torn by competing narratives or drowned in the screaming matches of various camps online, you’re not alone. There is no pretty way of saying this: Your social feed is flooded with s___t. 

Duterte is now in The Hague to be tried for his alleged crimes against humanity. 

• What happened in the critical hours? Jairo Bolledo writes the inside story.
• How was this possible when the Philippines under Duterte withdrew from the ICC? The ICC has jurisdiction over Duterte’s alleged crimes as they were committed when Manila was still a member. Antonio Montalvan II tackles the “persistent lie” about the ICC.
• International charters and treaties were crafted in a post-war world order that pushed for world peace and human rights. To enforce them, the sovereign country concerned must cooperate. Lian Buan explains to us the value of cooperation and how, ironically, it took the Philippines — and under a Marcos at that — to show the world it can be done. 
• Does politics have anything to do with it? Of course, but that does not dilute the core issue of justice. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has tactical and strategic reasons for banishing Duterte to The Hague. The ICC has its own context: It had issued warrants to 30 suspects, but only six are in custody. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite charges of war crimes against them, are out of ICC’s reach. Duterte’s arrest is a boost to the troubled organization, writes Reuters. Here’s a list of former and current leaders with arrest warrants from the ICC, as compiled by Jodesz Gavilan.
• US President Donald Trump is leading the charge against the ICC by asking Congress to craft a law that will impose sanctions on people who cooperate with the body. If passed, how will this affect the trial of Duterte? 
• What are the foreign policy consequences of Duterte’s arrest and forthcoming trial? For one, it narrows the space for building mutual trust with China, writes a UP professor and China expert.

In our part of the world, we’ve seen this movie before: a president booted out by the sheer power of the people or the law or both, a nation moved to tears — of joy for the victors, of anger for the vanquished. Three times, to be exact.

The late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos, his family, and closest aides were forced to board a US plane on February 25, 1986, that brought them to Honolulu, his home-in-exile until he died in 1989. Marcos loyalists protested, marched, and financed the destabilization and coup attempts against Cory Aquino from 1986 to 1992. She crushed them all.

Impeached for corruption, Joseph Estrada was able to serve only for more than two years as he was ousted in a military-backed civilian revolt in January 2001, four months before the midterm elections that he hoped his administration would dominate. Estrada loyalists protested, marched, and, with the help of his senatorial bets, mounted a street uprising and attacked Malacañang. The Iglesia ni Cristo formed the backbone of that unrest. Yet it failed. We tell the story of the bloody but failed EDSA 3 uprising here.

It got messier with his successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was charged in 2011 with plunder by the administration of the late president Noynoy Aquino. The neck-braced former president attempted to leave the country before that could be filed, but was stopped by the office of then-justice secretary Leila de Lima. She was then brought to a posh hospital, where she was eventually served an arrest warrant. Arroyo was put under hospital arrest for four years, until 2016 when she walked free.

The three leaders who punished their predecessors — Cory Aquino, Gloria Arroyo, Noynoy Aquino — managed to survive the blowback from their decisions. 

But President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. finds himself in far murkier waters and with more inflammables: midterm elections in May that he needs to win, a July impeachment trial of a vice president that he needs to convict, and a highly charged international trial in September of a former ally whose base is now all riled up.

Two things are also unique to his own context compared to that of his predecessors’: the massive social networks that now create new meta “realities” and deliver them at breakneck speed and in all forms, and a scrolling world that thrives on hate and muck and nothing else in between.

Welcome to your first quarter storm, Mr. President.

Here are some of Rappler’s bests that you shouldn’t miss:

• Paterno Esmaquel II, who covered the rally of Duterte supporters at the Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila on Saturday, March 15, raises difficult questions for Christians and their view of God as the punisher. “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” is deeply embedded in our collective psyche, he says.  
• Pia Ranada Robles walks down memory lane, when Duterte was at the height of his power and loved by many who turned a blind eye.
• Dwight de Leon writes that half of Marcos’ senatorial slate were anti-ICC under Duterte.
• JC Punongbayan reminds us of the economic sins of the past Duterte administration. 
• Michelle Abad gives a timely reminder for public school teachers who will help in the elections. 

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– Rappler.com

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