Day 1: The drug war goes to The Hague: Inside Duterte’s confirmation of charges hearing

“The ICC is the last boat the victims can board.” — Joel Butuyan, legal representative for 539 authorized victims, February 23, 2026

That boat sailed yesterday from The Hague. For the families of the thousands killed in Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, it may be the only one that comes.

Courtroom I of the International Criminal Court. The confirmation of charges hearing in The Prosecutor v. Rodrigo Roa Duterte officially opened . It is the first time a former head of state from the Asia-Pacific region has been brought before the ICC to answer for alleged crimes against humanity. The hearing runs through February 27, and a decision follows within 60 days.

Read day 2: Day 2: “Nanlaban” was a lie. The ICC just spent a full day proving it.

Read Day 3: What the Duterte Defense Is actually arguing 

Read Day 4: What “Superman” ordered: Five things the ICC hearing proved about Duterte’s war

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Filipinos have been waiting for something like this for years. Here’s what Day One looked like, and what it means for what comes next.

What This Hearing Is and Is Not

Let’s be clear about one thing first: this is not a trial. The confirmation of charges hearing is a threshold question . Do enough grounds exist to believe Duterte committed the crimes alleged? If the Pre-Trial Chamber says yes, the case moves to a full trial. If they say no, it ends here.

Just days before the hearing opened, the Chamber granted both sides room to expand their evidence lists. The defense was allowed to add 108 items — transcripts and audio-video material they called ‘highly relevant.’ The prosecution added 14. That volume alone signals how much ground this week’s hearing has to cover.

Three judges will make that call: Presiding Judge Iulia Antoanella Motoc, Judge Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou, and Judge María del Socorro Flores Liera.

Duterte was not in the room. He waived his right to attend, citing his rejection of the ICC’s jurisdiction and his health, and he’s still being held at Scheveningen. British-Israeli attorney Nicholas Kaufman and French lawyer Dov Jacobs represented him in his absence.

The Prosecution’s Case: “He Pulled the Trigger Through His Subordinates”

Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang didn’t ease into it. His opening argument placed Duterte at the “very heart” of a plan to neutralize alleged criminals through extrajudicial killings. That’s the prosecution’s core claim, and it’s what the judges will be testing all week.
Three counts of murder and attempted murder as crimes against humanity, covering two periods and contexts:

• Count 1 — Davao City, 2011–2016: killings attributed to the Davao Death Squad during Duterte’s time as mayor
• Count 2 — National, June 2016–2017: killings of so-called “High-Value Targets” on the PRRD List
• Count 3 — National, 2016–March 2019: killings during “Barangay Clearance” operations that largely hit the urban poor

The prosecution’s theory is “indirect co-perpetration” — meaning they don’t need to show Duterte personally pulled a trigger on any specific victim. What they’re arguing is that he ran the system that made the killings happen: the target lists, the kill squads, the cash rewards. The charges focus on 49 documented incidents and 78 named victims, but prosecutors were explicit — those are illustrative. The broader death toll they’re working with sits somewhere between 12,000 and 30,000.

At the center of all of it is what they’re calling the “Davao model”, a structure built on target lists, police-managed hitmen, and reward money, which Duterte allegedly scaled from city-level operations to national policy after assuming the presidency in 2016. Niang quoted Duterte directly to establish intent: “I used to do it personally just to show to the guys that if I can do it, why can’t you?”

Eight Co-Perpetrators, Two of Them Sitting Senators

On February 13, a “Public Lesser Redacted” version of the Document Containing the Charges named Duterte’s alleged co-perpetrators by name. This is where the case stops being an abstract proceeding in The Hague and becomes a very concrete Philippine political problem.

The eight named:

• Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa — former PNP Chief, alleged architect of “Project Double Barrel” and overseer of national drug war operations
• Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go — former Special Assistant to the President, alleged coordinator of reward systems and communications with hit squads
• Oscar Albayalde — former PNP Chief, alleged to have operationalized kill quotas and suppressed investigations
• Vitaliano Aguirre II — former Justice Secretary, alleged to have provided legal cover and immunity for police
• Dante Gierran — former NBI Director, alleged intentional failure to investigate drug war killings
• Isidro Lapeña — former PDEA Director, alleged direction of drug enforcement assets toward lethal operations
• Camilo Cascolan — former PNP Chief, alleged planning of barangay clearance operations
• Vicente Danao — former PNP Chief, alleged leadership role in Davao and national police kill teams

Dela Rosa and Go are not former officials. They are sitting senators right now. If these charges are confirmed and a trial moves forward, the Philippine government could face pressure to enforce ICC arrest warrants against its own legislators. Manila has not answered what it would do if it came to that. The question won’t stay hypothetical indefinitely.

The Defense: “Bluster, Hyperbole, and Political Persecution”

Kaufman opened by asking the judges to throw the whole thing out . He mentioned  “grievously misplaced and politically motivated” . His argument ran on two tracks.

Track one: Duterte’s rhetoric wasn’t instruction. All the threats, all the kill-or-be-killed language. Kaufman called it “hyperbole, bluster, and rhetoric,” the kind of bombast meant to project strength rather than give orders. He argued the prosecution hasn’t produced a single witness who heard Duterte give a direct, unambiguous order to kill any of the 78 victims in the charges.

Track two: Marcos is behind this. Kaufman cited a document he said contained a transcript of a call where a “silent partner” for President Marcos boasted about managing a scheme to funnel witnesses to the court while keeping the President’s hands clean. The defense is framing Duterte’s transfer to The Hague as a broken political promise, a settling of scores disguised as international justice.

The judges may or may not buy it. But Kaufman’s move was deliberate . Drag the case into local politics, make Marcos’ cooperation part of what Filipinos argue about, and muddy the moral clarity of what’s happening in that courtroom.

The Victims Speak: Falsified Death Certificates and Erased Evidence

Joel Butuyan, speaking for 539 authorized victims, didn’t need elaborate legal theory. What he described was specific, and that specificity is what made it land.

Families opened death certificates to find their relatives — people who died from multiple gunshot wounds — listed as having died from pneumonia, heart attack, stroke, or sepsis. This wasn’t a paperwork error in isolated cases. It was systematic.

He also quoted former Justice Secretary and current Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, who reportedly acknowledged that building domestic cases is nearly impossible because “those who need to speak are involved in the crime” and that the forensic evidence, such as the ballistics, the DNA, the police reports, was simply not there anymore. Erased.

That’s the reality behind Butuyan’s “last boat” framing. It’s not that domestic courts are slow. It’s that the domestic system is tangled up with the same institutions being asked to investigate themselves.

What Happens After February 27

After the five-day hearing closes, the Pre-Trial Chamber has 60 days to decide. Three directions it can go:

• Confirm the charges — the case moves to a Trial Chamber for a full trial
• Decline to confirm — insufficient evidence, proceedings end
• Adjourn — prosecution asked to provide more evidence or modify the charges

One procedural reality that matters: a full trial cannot happen without Duterte physically present. Article 63 of the Rome Statute is clear on that. His arrest in Manila in March 11, 2025 and subsequent transfer to Scheveningen is what makes a trial even possible. He has to be there. That’s the linchpin.

What You Can Do

The verdict lands back here, in the Philippines, not in The Hague. Here’s how to stay engaged and stay useful:

• Read the actual documents. The “Public Lesser Redacted” version of the Document Containing the Charges is publicly available on the ICC website. The specifics matter more than the summaries.

• Ask your legislators directly. What is the position of Dela Rosa and Go on being named as co-perpetrators in these charges? Silence from them is still a position.

• Scrutinize the defense narrative, don’t just dismiss or accept it. The claim that this is Marcos weaponizing the ICC deserves examination . Look at the evidence, not just the framing.

• Keep the victims at the center. The 12,000 to 30,000 dead are not a legal abstraction. Their families have names, addresses, stories. Don’t let the procedural drama swallow that.

• Watch what Manila does next. Confirmed charges mean pressure to act on future warrants, including potentially against sitting senators. That’s a constitutional question the government hasn’t answered yet.

• Don’t keep this inside your own bubble. Share one verified document or clip with someone who isn’t following ICC news. Ask them what they think not what they agree with.

• Watch your feed for posts that sound too clean and certain. That’s usually the cue to go back to the primary record first.

Seven years of investigation. One week of hearings. Sixty days for a decision. And if the charges are confirmed, the question that comes back to all of us: what kind of country are we trying to be?

The last boat has left. The question is whether we’re willing to hold the dock.