Philippine politician wanted by ICC flees senate after days holed up in building

Ronald dela Rosa, wanted over involvement in Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’, reportedly left heavily guarded building before dawn

A Philippine lawmaker wanted by the international criminal court for his alleged role enforcing Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody anti-drugs crackdown has secretly fled the senate after spending days holed up in the building to avoid arrest.

The senate president, Alan Peter Cayetano, confirmed to the media that senator Ronald dela Rosa was “no longer in the building” after reports that he had slipped out of the heavily guarded building before dawn.

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Gunshots fired in Philippines senate in standoff with senator wanted by ICC

Ronald dela Rosa, accused of crimes against humanity by international criminal court, has holed up in building to evade arrest

Gunshots have been fired in the Philippines senate as a senator who is wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) remained holed up in the building to evade arrest.

Ronald dela Rosa, a Philippine senator accused of crimes against humanity for his role in overseeing the former president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs”, has spent two nights in the country’s senate in a standoff with the authorities.

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Chaos in Philippines as Duterte ally wanted by ICC takes refuge in senate to avoid arrest

Former police chief Ronald dela Rosa spends night at senate office after another Duterte ally offers protective custody

The unusual pursuit was captured on CCTV cameras inside the Philippine senate. Ronald dela Rosa, a longtime ally of the former president Rodrigo Duterte, raced along the hallways of the upper house complex, stumbling on the staircase, as he fled government agents.

“They want to forcibly bring me to The Hague, to surrender me there,” Dela Rosa said later on a Facebook livestream, pleading for public support.

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Philippine presidential hopeful Sara Duterte impeached for second time

Vice-president is accused of misusing public funds and threatening the lives of President Marcos Jr and his wife

The Philippine vice-president, Sara Duterte, has been impeached over allegations she misused public funds, amassed unexplained wealth and threatened the lives of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his wife, in a case that could complicate her presidential ambitions.

Duterte, the daughter of the detained former president Rodrigo Duterte, was impeached by an overwhelming majority of lawmakers in the House of Representatives, which is dominated by allies of Marcos.

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Philippines’ ex-president Rodrigo Duterte to face trial for crimes against humanity

ICC judges say there are substantial grounds to believe Duterte guided anti-drugs crackdown that killed thousands

The former president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, will face trial at the international criminal court (ICC) after judges unanimously confirmed charges of crimes against humanity over his “war on drugs”.

Pre-trial judges concluded on Thursday that there were substantial grounds to believe Duterte was responsible for the crimes against humanity of murder and attempted murder in relation to anti-drugs crackdowns that led to the killing of thousands of people.

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Duterte at ‘very heart’ of murderous drug crackdowns in Philippines, ICC told

Ex-president, accused of crimes against humanity, selected targets and promised immunity for death squad members, prosecutor says

Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, was “at the very heart” of brutal anti-drugs campaigns that led to the killing of thousands of people, prosecutors at the international criminal court (ICC) have argued, as they called for charges against him to proceed to trial.

Duterte, 80, who was arrested in Manila last year and flown to The Hague, is facing three counts of crimes against humanity over campaigns against drug users and dealers during his presidency, and his earlier tenure as mayor of the city of Davao.

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Philippine vice-president Sara Duterte announces 2028 presidential bid

Sara Duterte, daughter of a former president who is facing charges of crimes against humanity at the Hague, pledged to offer her ‘life, strength and future’ in service of the Philippines

Philippine vice-president Sara Duterte, daughter of the imprisoned former leader Rodridgo Duterte, has announced she will run for president in the country’s 2028 election.

Sara Duterte, 47, said she would offer her “life, strength and future” in service of the Philippines, in a speech on Wednesday that accused President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, of presiding over a period marked by rampant corruption.

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Philippine president Marcos denies estranged sister’s claim he is a cocaine addict

Communications undersecretary Claire Castro says claims from the president’s sister may be an attempt to distract from investigations into a corruption scandal

Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr has denied accusations made by his estranged sister that he is longtime drug addict, whose alleged cocaine dependence has led to governance issues, including corruption, a spokesperson for the president has said.

Communications undersecretary Claire Castro described the comments by the president’s sister, senator Imee Marcos’, as baseless, and suggested they may have been a desperate attempt to distract ongoing investigations into a corruption scandal involving flood control projects that may implicate her allies in the Senate.

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Rodrigo Duterte, former Philippines president, charged with crimes against humanity at ICC

Three charges against Duterte stem from his years-long campaign against drug users and dealers that rights groups say killed thousands

International criminal court prosecutors have charged the former president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte with three counts of crimes against humanity over bloody campaigns carried out during his “war on drugs”.

A charge sheet, dated 4 July but made public on Monday, laid out accusations against the 80-year-old former leader, who has been in ICC detention in The Hague since March.

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Rodrigo Duterte wins Philippines mayoral election from jail cell in The Hague

Former president of nation re-elected as mayor of city of Davao despite his enforced absence

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has been re-elected as mayor of the city of Davao, the family’s stronghold, despite being imprisoned thousands of miles away in The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity.

With more than 60% of returns in, Duterte, 80, had an insurmountable lead of 405,000 votes – far ahead of his nearest competitor who trailed on 49,000, according to unofficial results from the election commission published by local media.

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Philippines elections 2025: polls open in midterms as Marcos and Duterte family dynasties vie for power

Senate race will be key to future of Sara Duterte as she faces impeachment trial, while her could become mayor despite being detained in The Hague

Millions of Filipinos began voting on Monday in a midterm election widely seen as a referendum on the explosive feud between President Ferdinand Marcos and impeached vice-president Sara Duterte.

Workers in the capital, Manila, were busily setting up polling stations on Sunday for a race that will decide more than 18,000 posts, from seats in the House of Representatives to hotly contested municipal offices.

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Duterte’s arrest gives ‘a sense impunity ends’, says Nobel peace prize winner

Maria Ressa says rules-based order ‘can perhaps still exist’ but social media is being used to undermine democracy around the world

The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is a welcome sign that the rules-based order continues to hold, the Nobel laureate Maria Ressa has said, even as the global order has been marred by the US “descending into hell” at the hands of the same forces that consumed the Philippines.

Ressa’s remarks came after Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, made his first appearance before the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague, accused of committing crimes against humanity during his brutal “war on drugs”.

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Monday briefing: Is Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest a sign of the ICC’s strength or its limitations?

In today’s newsletter: the former Philippines president was arrested and taken to The Hague after a tense standoff. It’s a much needed win for the international criminal court – but success is far from a given

Good morning.

Last Tuesday, chaos erupted at Manila’s main airport as authorities arrested the Philippines’ 79-year-old former president Rodrigo Duterte, who had arrived from Hong Kong. An arrest warrant issued in secret by the international criminal court (ICC) accused him of crimes against humanity for his alleged involvement in killings during his brutal “war on drugs”.

Benefits | Keir Starmer is to defy growing anger by driving through welfare cuts for some of the UK’s most severely disabled people, with an overhaul that could see more than 600,000 benefit claimants lose out on an average of £675 a month.

Ukraine | Donald Trump has said he plans to discuss ending the war in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and that negotiators have already discussed “dividing up certain assets”. “We will be talking about land. We will be talking about power plants,” Trump said, when asked about concessions.

Space | A pair of US astronauts stuck for more than nine months on the International Space Station will be returned to Earth on Tuesday evening, Nasa has said. Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams are to be transported home with another American astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut after a SpaceX Crew Dragon craft arrived at the ISS early on Sunday.

Business | Buy-to-let has become the largest single type of business in the UK – nearly four times as prevalent as fast food takeaways or hairdressers.

Healthcare | The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has said he believes there is an “overdiagnosis” of some mental health conditions as well as “too many people being written off” – factors he said were key to the government’s welfare measures.

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Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte appears by video link in Hague accused of crimes against humanity – as it happened

Duterte faces charges over his years-long campaign against drug users and dealers that rights groups say killed tens of thousands. This live blog is closed

Philippine ex-president Rodrigo Duterte is appearing by video link before judges at the international criminal court.

Duterte would follow the proceedings through a video link, a court spokesperson said.

To some Duterte’s arrest this week came as a sudden shock. But for years many brave Filipinos, from priests, politicians, pathologists, to relatives of the victims and journalists, have worked tirelessly, in and out of the spotlight, to expose the horrors of the deadly campaign and collect enough evidence to hold Duterte to account.

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Rodrigo Duterte says he will accept responsibility after ICC arrest over ‘war on drugs’

Former Philippines president filmed a video message en route to the Hague, saying ‘I will be responsible for everything’

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte has said he will accept responsibility for his government’s so-called “war on drugs” in a video message filmed on board a plane shortly before he was taken into the custody of the international criminal court (ICC).

“Whatever happened in the past, I will be the front of our law enforcement and the military. I said this already, that I will protect you, and I will be responsible for everything,” he said.

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Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest could be telling blow in the Philippines’ dynastic feud

Former president was surrendered to The Hague amid a row between his family and that of the current president

Few expected things to move so quickly. Supporters of the Philippines’ former president Rodrigo Duterte barely had time to protest before he was jetted off to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity in relation to his country’s so-called “war on drugs”. According to activists, this bloody crackdown has seen as many as 30,000 people killed since 2016.

The charges brought against the former leader are the culmination of years of work by activists, lawyers and victims, who documented abuses committed under his government, often at great personal risk. But Duterte arguably would not have been surrendered to The Hague if it weren’t for his family’s dramatic feud with that of Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the current president.

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Rodrigo Duterte’s lawyers demand he is returned to the Philippines after ICC arrest

Daughter accuses government of ‘kidnapping’ the former president as victims of his ‘war on drugs’ express jubilation over his arrest

Lawyers for the former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte have demanded that he be returned to Manila in a petition filed to the supreme court, as victims of the former leaders’ bloody “war on drugs” expressed jubilation.

Duterte, who was flown to The Hague on Tuesday night to face charges of crimes against humanity in relation to anti-drugs crackdowns is the first former Asian leader to be served an arrest warrant filed by the ICC. Activists say as many as 30,000 people were killed in the “war on drugs”.

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Duterte flown to The Hague after arrest over Philippines drug war killings

Ex-president to face charges of crimes against humanity over ‘war on drugs’ that rights groups say left 30,000 dead

The former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has left Manila on a plane headed to The Hague, hours after he was served with an arrest warrant from the international criminal court over the killings resulting from his “war on drugs”.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr told a press conference that a plane carrying Duterte took off at 11.03pm local time on Tuesday. “The plane is en route to The Hague in the Netherlands, allowing the former president to face charges of crimes against humanity in relation to his bloody war on drugs,” he said.

Duterte’s youngest daughter, Veronica Duterte, said on social media that the plane had been used to “kidnap” her father.

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Critic wrongly jailed by former president of Philippines hopes to return to politics

Leila de Lima enraged Rodrigo Duterte when she began investigating killings carried out during his ‘war on drugs’

Leila de Lima, one of fiercest critics of the former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody “war on drugs” who was jailed for more than six years on baseless charges, will try to return to politics in 2025.

De Lima was one of the few politicians who criticised Duterte during his time in office, and enraged the former leader when she began investigating killings carried out during his anti-drugs crackdowns. She knew to expect retaliation, she said. “I thought it would just be regular vilification, the slut-shaming, the verbal attacks,” she said. She did not anticipate that she would spend more than six and a half years in prison.

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Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s deputy vows to have him assassinated if she is killed

Vice-president Sara Duterte tells press conference she has given an assassin the instructions, prompting referral from Marcos’s office over ‘active threat’

The Philippines’ vice-president, Sara Duterte, said on Saturday she would have someone assassinate the president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, if she herself were killed, leading Marcos’s office to vow “immediate proper action”.

In a dramatic sign of a widening rift between the country’s two most powerful political families, Duterte told a press conference that she had spoken to an assassin and instructed him to kill Marcos, his wife and the speaker of the Philippine house of representatives if she were to be killed.

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