Well, well, well. If it isn't the Iron Fist of the Philippines, Rodrigo ‘Eat My Shorts’ Duterte, finally getting a date with the sort of justice that doesn't involve an extrajudicial wink and a nod. The International Criminal Court, in its infinite wisdom (and presumably after a very strong coffee), has set November 30th for the trial of the former president. And who gets to oversee this little shindig? British judges, no less. Because nothing says ‘impartiality’ like a bunch of gents in horsehair wigs who can't agree on the proper way to queue for tea.
Let's be clear: this is not a trial. This is a circus with a legal veneer. The charges, for those of you who've been living under a rock or in a Duterte propaganda bubble, revolve around his ‘war on drugs’ which, conveniently, seemed to target anyone with a pulse and a poor postal code. Thousands dead, and the man's defence is likely to be something along the lines of ‘But I made the trains run on time!’ (Spoiler: he didn't. The trains are still a mess.)
Now, the appointment of British judges is a masterstroke of geopolitical farce. The British legal system, a proud institution that once sentenced a man to death for stealing a sheep (true story, look it up), is now supposed to adjudicate on the systematic slaughter of alleged drug dealers. It's like asking a fox to guard the henhouse, except the fox is wearing a red robe and has a tiny, furious wig on its head.
Expect the proceedings to be a predictable ballet of buffoonery. The prosecution, no doubt, will drone on with charts and graphs. The defence, probably funded by some oligarch with a taste for gold-plated toilets, will argue that Duterte was just ‘cleaning the streets.’ Meanwhile, the judges will periodically peer over their spectacles and say things like ‘I say, old chap, that is rather beastly, isn't it?’ before retiring for a glass of sherry and beef wellington.
But here's the kicker: the ICC has no army. It has no police force. It has a slightly stern email server and a bunch of interns with clipboards. If Duterte decides to sit this one out, perhaps claiming a sudden bout of ‘political diarrhoea,’ what can they do? Send him a strongly worded letter? Impose sanctions on his favourite brand of gin? The whole enterprise reeks of symbolic theatre, a chance for the international community to tut loudly while the real butchers sit comfortably in their golden bunkers.
And let's not forget the timing. November 30th. That's late autumn, when the Hague is grey and miserable, and the wind cuts through you like a kris blade. Duterte, a man who thrives on tropical heat and even hotter rhetoric, will be forced to shiver in a courtroom that smells of mothballs and failed expectations. It's poetic, really. Or it would be, if there were any real stakes.
In the end, this trial is a farce, a pantomime of accountability for a man who has long since crossed the threshold of any moral framework. He'll probably use the platform to spout some nationalist tripe, wave his hands like a deranged puppet master, and then head back to Davao to watch the sunset over a sea of drug-free corpses. The judges will write their judgments, the journalists will polish their prose, and nothing will change. But at least we'll be entertained. And isn't that what justice is all about in the modern world? A bit of theatre to distract from the corpse-strewn reality? Right then, pass the gin.
