Duterte regards international concern as “meddling” in the country’s affairs, if not an outright attack on himself and the nation’s sovereignty. Last April, when the lawyer Jude Josue Sabio submitted his complaint to the ICC, the number of killings stood at 7,000. The response from Ernesto Abella, Duterte’s presidential spokesman last year, just stopped short of using the word “treasonous”. The President, he added, is “sick and tired of being accused.”The ICC action and the possibility of being tried in The Hague have stoked Duterte’s febrile imagination. He imagines the ICC to be a kangaroo court where he will be found guilty and sentenced to death.

Source: Manila Times February 12, 2018 15:45 UTC