Rody wants to go home ASAP — Sara

Detained former president Rodrigo Duterte wants to go home as soon as possible, after nearly a month in the Scheveningen Prison in The Hague, his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte told reporters outside the detention facility on Friday.

- ELIZABETH MARCELO

"He repeatedly said, and I told him, 'I understand where you are coming from and I totally agree with the urgency.' He wants to go back to the Philippines. He said, 'I am an old man, I can die anytime but I want to die in my country'," the Vice President said after her hour-long phone conversation with her father.

“And I told him that we understand that you want it now and it is urgent. And he said ‘yes.’ And I told him that ‘the lawyers are working every day on your case and there is a lawyer everyday visiting you, explaining what they are doing’,” the Vice President added.

British-Israeli lawyer Nicholas Kaufman, who has been appointed as the former president’s lead defense counsel, had earlier said their team intends to file a petition before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the former president’s interim release.