The Philippines left the ICC in 2019 on the instructions of Duterte, but the court maintained that he had jurisdiction on the murders before the withdrawal, as well as the murders in the southern city of Davao when Duterte was mayor, years before becoming president.
He launched an official investigation in September 2021, to suspend it two months later after Manila said that she re -examined several hundred cases of drug operations that led to death in the hands of the police, hired killers and vigilantes.
The case resumed in July 2023 after a panel of five judges rejected the objection of the Philippines that the court lacked jurisdiction.
Since then, the government of President Ferdinand Marcos said in many cases where he would not cooperate in the investigation.
But the under-secretary of the presidential communications office, Claire Castro, said on Sunday that if Interpol “would ask for the aid necessary for the government, he is obliged to follow”.
A group that worked to support the mothers of those who were killed in the repression of Duterte's drugs qualified the arrest of “very welcome development”.
“Mothers whose husbands and children have been killed because of the drug war are very happy because they have been waiting for this for a very long time,” Rise Up for Life and Rights.
Duterte is still extremely popular among the members of the Philippines who have supported its rapid crime solutions, and there remains a powerful political force.
He presents himself to recover his work as mayor of his Bastion Davao during the mid-term elections in May.
Accusations have been placed locally in a handful of cases related to drug operations which led to deaths, only nine police officers were sentenced for having killed alleged drug suspects.
An self-proclaimed killer, Duterte told the police to get out of the drugs of drugs if their lives was in danger and insisted that the repression saved families and prevented the Philippines from transforming themselves into a “narcocopolitical state”.
When the Philippine Senate was opened in the drug war in October, Duterte said he had offered “no excuse, no excuse” for his actions.
“I did what I had to do, and you believe it or not, I did it for my country,” he said.
