THE courtroom in The Hague may be thousands of miles away, but the real trial is unfolding here at home.
The appearance of former president Rodrigo Duterte before the International Criminal Court (ICC) is not merely a legal proceeding, but a national stress test. It forces us to confront a question we have long postponed: Can a republic demand strong leadership without insisting on strong law?
Emotions are running high. For many, Duterte represents decisive governance at a time of drift. For others, he embodies the normalization of lethal force in the name of order. Lines are drawn. Minds are made up.
But if we are to rise above the heat of the moment, we must think constitutionally, not tribally.
Duterte rose to power by projecting iron resolve. His rhetoric was blunt. His methods, uncompromising. Millions of Filipinos, frustrated by criminality and bureaucratic paralysis, welcomed that style. They equated strength with effectiveness.
Yet democracies are not designed around personalities, however compelling they are. Democracies are structured around limits. American Founding Father James Madison said that, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” The corollary is equally true. Because men are not angels, power must answer to law.
The ICC, established under the Rome Statute in 2002, operates on a central principle: complementarity. It intervenes only when domestic courts are unwilling or unable to genuinely investigate and prosecute alleged crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes, or aggression. It is not a first resort, but a last recourse.
The Philippines ratified the Rome Statute in 2011. Whatever one’s view of subsequent withdrawal, jurisdiction attaches to alleged acts committed during membership. That is a legal reality.
This case is not a referendum on whether the drug war was popular. It is a narrower inquiry: Were there acts that meet the threshold of crimes against humanity? Were the investigations credible and independent? Did domestic institutions function as they should?
Supporters argue that extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. That argument resonates in societies anxious about disorder. But here lies the constitutional fault line: If a leader is strong enough to exercise extraordinary power, then the law must be strong enough to examine how that power was used. Otherwise, strength becomes an exemption. And an exemption, once normalized, becomes precedent.
History offers sobering lessons about precedents born in crisis. Temporary expansions of authority have a way of hardening into permanent expectations. What begins as an emergency measure can evolve into a governing habit. Democracies rarely collapse in a single dramatic moment; they erode incrementally, as exceptions quietly displace norms. The true test of a constitutional order is whether it can correct itself before that erosion becomes irreversible.
During my own years in government, I saw how crises compress time and heighten pressure. Decisions must be made swiftly. The temptation to cut corners in the name of expediency is real. Yet I learned that the durability of any decision depends not only on its decisiveness but on its legality. Authority exercised within the law strengthens institutions. Authority exercised outside it may deliver short-term results, but it also leaves long shadows that linger beyond a single administration.
If legality is treated as optional in one context, it becomes negotiable in others.
The ICC is not beyond criticism. It has faced accusations of selectivity and uneven enforcement. It has no police force of its own. Yet its existence reflects a postwar consensus that sovereignty cannot be an absolute shield against accountability for mass atrocities.
The deeper discomfort in this moment is domestic. Many Filipinos believe our own justice system is slow or compromised. When confidence in national institutions erodes, international mechanisms inevitably loom larger. International jurisdiction often fills a vacuum created at home.
Objectivity, therefore, requires discipline. Separate popularity from legality. Separate policy approval from procedural accountability. Separate nationalism from treaty obligation. But this discipline is demanding. It asks citizens to resist reducing complex legal questions to slogans. It asks leaders to avoid framing judicial scrutiny as political persecution. And it asks institutions to perform their duty without fear or favor.
It is entirely possible to believe that Duterte was decisive in confronting crime and still accept that decisive action must withstand legal examination. That is not betrayal; that is constitutional consistency.
This trial will ripple into the next presidential election. Narratives will harden. Some will frame it as a foreign intrusion; others as overdue justice. The temptation to weaponize the proceedings for partisan gain will be strong. But mature democracies do not calibrate legal principles according to electoral convenience.
The ultimate issue is not whether Duterte is convicted or acquitted. Courts, after all, decide cases. Nations, on the other hand, decide values.
Do we believe that power derives legitimacy from law? Or that law bends to power?
We often say we want strong leaders. But strength without accountability is force. Strength under law is statesmanship.
The courtroom in The Hague will render its judgment in time. History will render another judgment — on whether we chose loyalty over law, or law over loyalty.
Strong leaders come and go. Strong institutions endure. And only institutions, firmly anchored in law, keep a republic free.
“No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it,” said US President Theodore Roosevelt.
