Critics weigh in on Duterte's arrest

LAWYER Neri Colmenares said the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity was a positive development for the Philippines, noting the former leader failed to deliver justice to victims of alleged extrajudicial killings (EJKs) during his war on drugs.

"This is just an initial step toward justice and it would take more time to achieve justice," Colmenares said during the Agenda Forum hosted by Pastor JV Guzman at Club Filipino on Friday.

He added funds might be raised to bring one or two widows of EJK victims to the Hague to personally file charges against Duterte before the ICC.

Jane Lee, a widow of an EJK victim, said it was hard to get legal aid from the Department of Justice during the death of her husband.

She added that like her, families of victims of alleged EJKs have found the pursuit of justice costly, and focused instead on their survival.

Lee said she wished that "Tokhang," the moniker for Duterte's bloody drug war, never existed.

Meanwhile, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano berated former senator Leila de Lima for saying he and Sen. Ronald dela Rosa should be arrested with Duterte.

"In the next few days, it's not just Senator Bato dela Rosa. What Senator de Lima and their other allies want is to eliminate their political opponents," he said in Filipino during a Facebook live session.

Cayetano denied turning a blind eye on alleged EJKs during Duterte's drug war.

"So let me know, how can you say we don't care about human rights when everything we did was for people's human rights? So I understand that there should not be EJKs, we agree with that, but you refused to see that because in your mind Duterte is the devil," he said.

Cayetano was Duterte's running mate during the 2016 polls while dela Rosa was police chief the implementation of the war on drugs.

De Lima said Cayetano's sole concern was political survival.

"You knew Duterte was going down, that's why you wanted to distance yourself from him, but you can't have it both ways. You enabled him, you defended him, you justified the killings, and no amount of backtracking will erase that," she added.

De Lima, a former senator and justice minister, as well as a staunch critic of Duterte, spent more than six years in jail while on trial for three drug trafficking charges.