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Facing charges of crimes against humanity and hauled off to The Hague, the arrest this week of the former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte is a pivotal moment for those seeking justice for the many thousands of lives lost during his reign.
Soon after his inauguration in 2016, the then Philippine leader embarked on a violent crackdown on drugs and crime that catalysed a wave of extrajudicial killings. Rights groups say that up to 30,000 people were killed in Duterte’s “war on drugs”.
To some, Duterte’s arrest this week came as a sudden shock. But for years many brave Filipinos, from priests, politicians and pathologists to journalists and relatives of the victims, 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, first at home and now at the international criminal court, where he will make his first appearance on Friday.
Here are some of the key people that played a role.
Flaviano Villanueva: the outspoken Catholic priest
A key figure in the movement to bring Duterte to justice was Fr Flaviano, one of several Filipino priests who were deeply critical of the drug wars. At times when the families of victims were too scared to speak out, the church provided an important source of refuge and support, and over the years encouraged witnesses and families to tell their stories. Flaviano, in tandem with the forensic pathologist Dr Raquel Fortun, also worked to collect evidence of the extrajudicial killings that could one day be used in court.
His initiative Project Arise enabled the bodies of the victims, with their families’ permission, to be exhumed from temporary graves and cremated, and then placed in a more permanent location. In the interim Fortun collected evidence about the causes of death, which regularly conflicted with the official account. Flaviano said the work allowed them “to discover systematic patterns on the kind of modus operandi the police and the killers were using in order to eliminate their target”.
Asked about how he felt about Duterte’s arrest, the priest told the Guardian he was elated. “This is the feeling of victory that the widows and myself have been simply dreaming of,” he said. “It’s like what scripture says about the people who have walked in darkness all their lives, and have finally seen a great light, a great hope has been revealed to us.”
Raquel Fortun: the forensic pathologist re-examining the dead
Raquel Fortun’s investigation into the “war on drugs” began in quite unlikely circumstances. It was 2021, and about five years had passed since Duterte had launched his crackdown. Many of the families of those killed, who had only been able to afford short leases on graves, were increasingly facing having the remains of their loved ones evicted from cemeteries.
Through Flaviano’s Project Arise, Fortun, one of only two forensic pathologists in the country, offered families the chance for the remains to be properly examined. She set up a table in the stockroom of her department at the University of the Philippines, and began work. She found frequent and serious irregularities in how postmortems were performed – death certificates that wrongly attributed fatalities to natural causes or bullets left untouched in victims’ bodies. Her work has added to a body of evidence contradicting the claims of the authorities.
Leila de Lima: the gutsy senator
Leila de Lima was one of the few politicians who dared to speak out against Duterte and his “war on drugs”. As the then chair of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, she began an inquiry into the killings. De Lima paid a high cost for taking up that challenge. Duterte responded by seeking to publicly humiliate her, and she was eventually jailed for more than six years on baseless charges, the last of which was finally dropped in 2024.
Speaking to the Guardian in December, De Lima said she knew the truth would eventually be exposed, and that she expected an arrest warrant could be issued imminently. “I knew that eventually, truth would prevail, and that is what is happening now,” she said. “Witnesses are coming out, not any more scared, telling the people, telling their testimony, what they knew about Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’.”
Commenting after Duterte’s arrest this week, De Lima said in a statement: “To those who have fought this long and difficult fight – your voices mattered, your courage mattered, and today, the pursuit of justice continues.”
Randy delos Santos: a bereaved uncle who fought for justice
On Tuesday morning Randy delos Santos’s phone began flashing with messages saying that police, Interpol and justice department officials were at the airport in Manila, ready to arrest Duterte. “I stopped what I was doing immediately to check the news online,” he said. “[I asked myself] Is it true, or am I dreaming?”
It was true – Duterte had been taken into custody. Randy went to church to meet other families and the media. He cried, overwhelmed with emotion. “It felt as if my body was becoming numb,” he said. “This is a new chapter of hope for us.”
More than six years have passed since his nephew, Kian delos Santos, was shot dead during Duterte’s anti-drugs crackdown. Kian was found dead in a dark alley near his home in Caloocan City, bent in a foetal position with a gun in his hand.
Police claimed that Kian had shot at them and they acted in self-defence, a common claim made by the authorities at the time. Kian’s death at just 17 years old prompted unprecedented public outrage and protests, and it was one of just a handful of cases that led to convictions. But even in a case as high profile as Kian’s, securing justice was an uphill battle for his family. “The burden is on us to look for physical evidence and testimonies,” he said.
There were times when Randy ate fried banana for his dinner, because he had spent all his money paying for transport to court. After Kian’s death Randy began working for the Arnold Janssen Kalinga Foundation, founded by Flaviano, supporting other families whose loved ones had been killed. Many were too afraid to speak out, fearing retaliation. Randy has given evidence to the ICC investigation and says he will do so again if needed.
He hopes the court will not stop at Duterte and will hold other high-ranking officials to account. “I hope they continue to go after and hold accountable those who have become abusive of their power,” he said.
He has forgiven Duterte, he added. “But he needs to face [the charges] and be accountable for the sin he committed – for the country, not just for Kian.”
Raffy Lerma: one of the ‘Nightcrawlers’
The Filipino photographer Raffy Lerma knew something had changed when he covered one of the first killings during the early days of Duterte’s drug war. “I remember the first crime scene I went to. I knew that night something was different. Why? I remember one reaction was that people were cursing them [the victims], saying they deserved to die … For me that was the start,” he recalled. There was no empathy and I knew something had changed.”
Photographers like Lerma, assigned to the night shift, were tasked with covering the grisly murders that occurred in the middle of the night – in the early days sometimes multiple times a night. The collective group of photographers have since been called the “night crawlers”. One image that Lerma took, shot in July 2016, featuring a woman cradling her partner after being shot to death by motorcycle-riding gunmen, encapsulates the horror of that time.
Despite the wave of killings, Duterte commanded widespread popularity at the start of his presidency, and with a flood of fake news, some denied the magnitude of the deaths. Lerma says the work of photographers and journalists helped counter the flood of misinformation and expose the reality on the ground. “It gave the official evidence it was happening,” he said. When Filipinos questioned whether the killings were occurring, “I showed my photographs, I told them, you cannot deny, I saw this. And these are my photographs to prove it. I was there.”
