Duterte arrested, put on flight to ICC

Rody camp runs to SC | 'You have to kill me first'

- EMMANUEL TUPAS

Former president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested for crimes against humanity upon his arrival from Hong Kong yesterday, and was flown last night to The Hague in the Netherlands, home of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Philippine government enforced an ICC arrest warrant coursed through the Interpol initially through a "diffusion request"—a mechanism for arresting wanted persons that is sent directly to a state and kept confidential.

Passengers on Cathay Pacific flight CX 907 were made to disembark first upon its arrival yesterday morning at the NAIA before a team escorted Duterte from his seat.

Duterte lamented that the team was following orders from white people — "mga puti" — and said that without a warrant, "you have to kill me first."

He eschewed the use of a wheelchair as he was led to the airport ramp and taken to neighboring Villamor Air Base, from where he boarded a jet at past 9 p.m. for The Hague.

Philippine National Police chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil and PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group director Maj. Gen. Nicolas Torre led more than 300 police officers in carrying out the arrest at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 at around 9:20 a.m.

Duterte was accompanied on the flight to The Hague, where the Interpol is also based, by his former executive secretary Salvador Medialdea, who also flew in with him from Hong Kong where the President campaigned for his Senate slate.

Torre met Duterte and his entourage on the passenger boarding bridge or tube where he read the former president – on his mobile phone – the information on his arrest.

In a video shared by his daughter Veronica on Instagram, Duterte’s common-law wife Honeylet Avanceña attempted to stop him from joining law enforcement authorities who were escorting him out, saying aloud that what they were doing was unfair.