MANILA — Davao City’s Cong. Paolo “Pulong” Duterte lashed out at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for rejecting the plea for interim release of his father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, branding the decision as a “gross miscarriage of justice” and vowing to challenge it through legal means.
In a fiery Facebook statement, the younger Duterte described the ICC ruling as “politically motivated,” accusing the court of persecuting the 80-year-old former chief executive who, he said, “poses no flight risk and deserves to return to his beloved Philippines.”
“This decision is a gross and disgraceful miscarriage of justice. It is not law — it is a political theater,” Pulong wrote. “We’ll appeal. We’ll fight this by the book. And by the grace of the Almighty, my father will go home to his beloved Philippines.”
The lawmaker insisted that his father’s continued detention was unjust and warned those he claimed were behind the move to “expect consequences.”
“He is much loved in his own country that he would have wanted nothing more but to stay there for as long as his creator permits him,” Pulong said.
Pulong also took aim at unnamed parties he called his father’s “kidnappers,” even alleging US intelligence involvement in what he described as a politically orchestrated “kidnapping.”
“To all kidnappers of my father, I will make sure that you will pay for this crime that you have committed,” he declared.
“To the CIA who connived in this criminal act, my father’s kidnapping will not silence him. As a matter of fact, you might just have helped in making him a martyr. The anger of his people on his baseless imprisonment might just worsen just as their love for him will grow bigger.”
The ICC earlier cited concerns that releasing Duterte could increase the risk of flight or witness intimidation — reasons the court deemed sufficient to deny the request for interim release.
The former president’s legal team is expected to center its appeal on those grounds as the Duterte family seeks his eventual return to the Philippines./PN
