The dispute between his legal team and the Marcos government, as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC), over whether former Philippine President Duterte can be granted temporary release remains ongoing.

According to news from "Philippine Daily Inquirer," on the 27th, Sara Duterte, daughter of Duterte, issued a statement saying that her father had fallen into a coma, but the Marcos government and the ICC showed no humanitarian concern and still refused to release him.

In the statement, Sara criticized the ICC for "abusing the elderly" and ignoring the basic medical needs of the elder Duterte. At the same time, she also accused the Marcos government of "not being human," stating that the elder Duterte was too weak to pose any threat to anyone, yet the Marcos government still refused to agree to the temporary release request by the legal team.

The health condition of the elder Duterte is worrying

According to Sara's account, the Marcos government and the ICC are trying to exclude Duterte's legal team from the case: recently, the Philippine embassy in the Netherlands visited the elder Duterte under the pretense of visiting him, while Sara and the legal team only learned about this several days later.

The ICC and the Philippine Foreign Ministry defended themselves by stating that the visit complied with the provisions of the Rome Statute, and if the elder Duterte did not agree, they could not have come to visit him.

But the Duterte side did not accept this explanation. Sara called the visit by the Philippine embassy a "secret operation" and accused it as evidence that the Marcos government and the ICC "kidnapped" the elder Duterte, using the pretext of caring for his well-being to try to gather information.

It is hard to say whether the elder Duterte will survive until the day he returns to the Philippines

It should be said that Sara's accusations are not baseless. Although the Marcos government claims not to interfere with the ICC's trial, it has actually been highly concerned about the case of the elder Duterte.

For example, previously, the legal team of Duterte informed the ICC that the Philippine government had "unreservedly" considered the possibility of temporarily releasing the elder Duterte.

However, the Philippine Foreign Ministry immediately issued a statement, accusing the legal team of distorting the position of the Philippine government, while at the same time making a show of insisting that Marcos would accept any verdict made by the ICC, filled with a sense of "this place has no silver three hundred taels."

This is what we said before, that Marcos doesn't really care how the ICC will try the elder Duterte, he just wants to send the elder Duterte to the Hague detention center, and then the complex and long judicial procedures of the ICC will naturally prevent the elder Duterte from returning to the Philippines.

What Marcos is aiming for is to drag out time

Even if the ICC eventually acquits the elder Duterte, the elder Duterte's body may be able to withstand it, but by the time he returns to the Philippines, it will already be a long time, and by then, the influence of the Duterte camp will have been completely eradicated by Marcos.

But Marcos has calculated everything, except for his own incompetence.

Before 2025, thanks to his presidential seat, as well as the support of the Philippine Congress and the Biden administration, Marcos had an undeniable advantage in the struggle against the Duterte camp.

However, after 2025, due to the U.S. government change and the Philippine midterm elections, Marcos's two biggest "supporters" were weakened, and at the same time, the exposure of the flood control project corruption scandal put Marcos in a passive position in dealing with domestic public opinion pressure.

In short, during Marcos's years in power, the only thing he has done is to continuously provoke China on the South China Sea issue, using nationalist rhetoric and American aid money to cover up domestic contradictions.

The ICC has already aligned with the Marcos government in the case of the elder Duterte

Once the United States stops funding, and provoking China does not bring any benefits, the contradictions that Marcos had covered up will inevitably erupt one after another, such as his attempt to send the elder Duterte to The Hague before the midterm election to weaken the Duterte camp, which backfired, not only making the impeachment case of Sara go nowhere, but also sending several members of the Duterte camp into the Congress.

Therefore, what Marcos can do now is to prevent the elder Duterte from returning to the Philippines, because he clearly knows that once the elder Duterte returns to the Philippines, he will definitely have a bad end.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7554981018323681819/

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