FORMER president Rodrigo Duterte has waived his right to attend a Nov. 2 status conference in his crimes against humanity case before the International Criminal Court (ICC), as questions remain over why Sen. Ronald dela Rosa is the only one among eight alleged co-perpetrators publicly confirmed to face an arrest warrant.
Duterte’s defense team submitted his signed waiver to ICC Trial Chamber III in a filing dated Oct. 30, complying with the chamber’s directive to formally place the document on record.
The defense said Duterte notified the chamber on Oct. 28 of his decision to waive his right to attend the fifth status conference.
The chamber granted his request the following day and directed his lawyers to submit a signed waiver.
Duterte also instructed his lawyers to address the procedural matters on the conference agenda and any other issues that may arise during the hearing.
The conference will take place before Trial Chamber III, composed of Presiding Judge Joanna Korner and Judges Keebong Paek and Nicolas Guillou, ahead of Duterte’s scheduled Nov. 30 trial.
Meanwhile, the ICC has not publicly explained whether arrest warrants have been issued against the seven other officials whom prosecutors identified alongside Duterte and dela Rosa as alleged co-perpetrators in the former president’s anti-drug campaign.
Aside from dela Rosa, the officials named in the prosecution’s updated trial brief include Sen. Christopher Lawrence Go; former Philippine National Police chiefs Vicente Danao, Oscar Albayalde and the late Camilo Cascolan; former justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II; former National Bureau of Investigation director Dante Gierran; and former Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency chief Isidro Lapeña.
Prosecutors allege that Duterte and the eight officials shared a “common plan” to neutralize people suspected of criminal activity through violent acts, including murder, from November 2011 to March 2019.
However, being named in the prosecution’s account does not automatically mean that an individual faces a separate charge or an arrest warrant. The ICC has not publicly confirmed warrants against the seven other officials.
The ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I issued an arrest warrant against dela Rosa under seal on Nov. 6, 2025, following a prosecution application filed three days earlier. The warrant was unsealed on May 11, 2026.
The chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that dela Rosa was responsible as an indirect co-perpetrator for the crime against humanity of murder, alongside Duterte and other alleged co-perpetrators.
The warrant covers killings committed between at least July 3, 2016, and the end of April 2018, when at least 32 people were killed. Dela Rosa served as PNP chief from July 1, 2016, to April 19, 2018.
The chamber said the killings cited in the warrant represented a sample of a potentially broader pattern of conduct, leaving prosecutors the possibility of seeking to add other alleged criminal incidents later.
Before the warrant was unsealed, an ICC spokesperson said no public arrest warrants had been issued in connection with the Philippines situation.
The court later confirmed that dela Rosa’s warrant had been issued confidentially before being made public.
The disclosure showed that the absence of a publicly announced warrant does not necessarily mean that no sealed warrant exists.
The ICC has not said whether similar warrants have been issued against other individuals named in the prosecution’s account.
ICC-accredited counsel Ross Tugade said in February that the identification of alleged co-perpetrators raised the possibility that the court was considering arrest warrants against them.
In its April confirmation-of-charges decision, however, the Pre-Trial Chamber clarified that references to the alleged co-perpetrators did not constitute a determination of their criminal responsibility.
