Around this time last year, in a room at the five-star Park Lane Hong Kong the day before Rody Duterte was to return to the Philippines on March 11, 2025, the mood had become tense; the succeeding hours were filled with uncertainty.
Duterte flew to Hong Kong days before to speak at a PDP rally with overseas Filipino workers and had been hearing that he would be arrested – for what exactly was still unclear.
But what was supposedly a regular trip of mostly political rallies and perhaps some wine and dine on the side turned out to be a prelude to Duterte’s historic arrest by the International Criminal Court.
At the time, he, his family and friends who were with him, including former executive secretary Salvador Medialdea and some retired generals, had been receiving information that Duterte, upon landing in the Philippines, would be served an arrest warrant at the airport. They did not know if it was ICC-related or from a sedition complaint filed by Maj. Gen. Nicolas Torre III, then chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police.
Remember that Torre had filed a complaint against the former president for joking about killing senators to make more vacancies for the senatorial candidates he was endorsing.
In the end, Duterte’s Hong Kong cavalry advised the former president that he had two alternative options and both had been “taken care of,” meaning arrangements had already been made. These include: one, flying to China and two, staying in Hong Kong for as long as it is needed instead of going back to Manila where an arrest was imminent.
But it was Duterte himself who insisted on facing his fate, or whatever it was that awaited him in Manila, even if it meant being transported all the way to the ICC at The Hague.
“Haharapin ko,” ES Medialdea quoted Duterte as saying.
Duterte’s camp wasted no time. ES Medialdea made arrangements to move their flight back to Manila to early morning, around 5 a.m., instead of 2 p.m. so that there would be time to seek remedies in the courts.
Upon landing in Manila, all the other passengers were asked to go down first, even though Duterte and his associates were in business class. The jet tube, by this time, was filled with PNP personnel led by Gen. Torre.
Duterte arrived at NAIA at 9:20 a.m. via Cathay Pacific Flight 907. While waiting for his wheelchair, retired Gen. Anthony Alcantara, executive director of the Philippine Center on Transnational Crimes, met him on the plane, informed him of the ICC-issued warrant and escorted him to the bridge, according to a report by The New York Times.
A passenger on the same flight said he was scared when he saw the crowd of policemen in the passenger tube, fearing it could collapse due to overcapacity.
ES Medialdea said there was no hard copy of the arrest warrant that was shown to them, only a copy on someone’s mobile phone. Amid the tension, he didn’t even have time to look at what was shown to them.
We all know what transpired next. Duterte, with ES Medialdea, who is a lawyer, was brought to Villamor Air Base where he and his family were housed in Maharlika Hall within the Presidential Airlift Wing.
‘Last chance’
That evening, Duterte, accompanied by Medialdea, boarded a private jet en route to Rotterdam, the Netherlands. During a stopover in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Medialdea again tried to convince Duterte to leave the plane and seek the help of UAE authorities but the former president did not want to do that. It was his last chance to avoid going to The Hague.
But Duterte was determined to face the charges, Medialdea said.
The rest, as they say, is history.
A year ago today, Duterte arrived in the Netherlands and was transferred to the ICC detention facility in The Hague.
ES Medialdea, who returned to The Hague for the confirmation of charges last month, was not allowed to see the former president during the February visit. The last time the two saw each other was when Medialdea visited him in the meeting room at the detention facility a year ago.
At the time, Duterte was in high spirits and was fighting boredom by reading, Medialdea said.
I learned all this from Medialdea himself, whom I recently met over coffee and donuts at J.CO in Makati, that famed donut chain from Indonesia which low-key tycoon Carlos Chan has brought to the Philippines.
During our chat, some diners requested a selfie with ES Medialdea, some of them posing with the trademark fist bump which is associated with the Duterte brand.
Like many of Duterte’s family, friends and supporters, ES Medialdea is hopeful that Duterte will be cleared of the charges against him. They call his arrest a kidnapping.
The former president, Medialdea said, believed that he did what he could to make his country better.
For victims of Duterte’s drug war, however, Duterte’s arrest is the closest to justice they could get.
As for many Filipinos, Rody Duterte’s arrest is a flashbulb memory, one of those big or earth-shaking events where one remembers exactly where they were when it happened.
I was in a breakfast meeting and I thought to myself that this was a historic day for the country.
What happens next is anyone’s guess but for sure, Duterte’s detention will significantly influence the 2028 elections.
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