Familiar tune? Kaufman uses Duterte’s populist messaging to defend him in ICC

British-Israeli lawyer Nicholas Kaufman’s opening statement before the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Pre-Trial Chamber I was straight out of Rodrigo Duterte’s populist playbook.

During the confirmation of charges hearing for Duterte’s crimes against humanity charges on Monday, February 23, Kaufman resorted to personal and political attacks, false causality, and even misleading information to defend his client.

This was in response to the passionate speech of victims’ lawyer Joel Butuyan, who eloquently explained to the chamber why the former president should be tried by the ICC.

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“But I feel that I ought to remind him that this is a court of law which decides matters on the basis of evidence, not on the basis of political demagoguery, and not on the basis of a desire to effect regime change despite the democratic will,” the counsel said.

But in less than two minutes, Kaufman had contradicted himself. The lawyer resorted to what he called “political demagoguery” to attack Duterte’s successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., whose administration had facilitated Duterte’s arrest. 

“So it is indeed the defense’s case that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. set out to neutralize Rodrigo Duterte and his legacy,” Kaufman told the prosecution. “Yes, Mr. Deputy Prosecutor, I used that legendary word, neutralize, so central and so essential to your case theory, because you know just as well as me that I’m using the term metaphorically.”

The word “neutralize” is at the center of the prosecution’s case because it can mean “kill” in the context of the war on drugs. In 2016, then-Philippine National chief Ronald dela Rosa signed Command Memorandum Circular (CMC) No. 16-2016, which operationalized the war on drugs, and contained the said term.

Using Dela Rosa’s previous interview, retired Supreme Court (SC) senior associate justice Antonio Carpio said in 2017 this term means that the suspects “should surrender, be arrested, or be killed during drug operations.” Human rights lawyers from the Free Legal Assistance Group challenged the war on drug’s constitutionality with the SC in 2017.

But almost nine years later, the High Court has yet to rule on the petition. 

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A list of misleading claims

Not serious? In a bid to justify his client’s acts, Kaufman said Duterte’s language did not intend to have lethal consequences, claiming that his “rhetoric was calculated to arouse fear and obedience.”

• “To instill fear in their hearts, and to inculcate a respect for the law in their minds. Nothing more, nothing less. That was his intent, and it was not criminal,” the lawyer said.
• However, Duterte himself had repeatedly admitted that he induced cops to kill alleged drug suspects. During a Senate blue ribbon committee hearing in 2024, the former president even said that he told his police to encourage suspects to fight back so they can justify the killings.
• Other officials like Marcos also admitted that the drug war was in fact abusive. (LIST: Officials who admitted post-Duterte that drug war was abusive)

On drug war deaths. Kaufman claimed that the drug-related deaths in the Philippines would have kept rising even if Duterte did not become president because the country “acts as a transit hub for the trafficking of narcotics emanating from the cartels in China.“ 

• “Indeed, as we will prove with statistics and reports, the death rate flown from narcotics-related crime actually increased after Rodrigo Duterte left power,” Kaufman claimed.
• But the spike in the death rate can be attributed to Duterte’s war on drugs where cops and vigilantes allegedly killed drug personalities summarily. In Duterte’s first three months alone, over 700 people had lost their lives, according to human rights groups.
• By the end of Duterte’s term in 2022, nearly 30,000 people were killed in the drug war, according to several human rights organizations. 
• It’s also not true that drug-related deaths increased after Duterte’s term. Killings continued under Marcos — with 342 incidents from July 1, 2022 to June 20, 2023 — but this number was lower compared to the killings under Duterte’s first months in office.

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Drug war is anti-poor. Kaufman also took a swipe at the allegation that Duterte’s war on drugs had targeted the poor, and not so much the high-value targets.

• Kaufman did not only claim that the drug war was “lawful,” but also downplayed the war by claiming that the former president implemented it while promoting projects “all with the aim of alleviating poverty.”
• “Legislative reform in 2017 to reduce personal income taxes for workers, social protection expansion known as the 4Ps (Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program) designed to provide regular cash transfers to needy and multi-child families, universal health care and, need I say more, the Magna Carta of the poor, setting out the right to adequate food, decent shelter, education and a higher standard of health,” Kaufman said.
• In reality, Duterte’s drug war was concentrated in areas where the urban poor live. A research showed that at least one in five victims of drug-related killings in Metro Manila in 2016 and 2017 were beneficiaries of 4Ps.
• A documentation of human rights group PhilRights revealed that in at least 58 extrajudicial killing cases referred to them, they found that the victims were “male adults within productive age range, primary breadwinners, low- or irregular-wage earners, of low educational attainment, and residents of urban poor communities.” Human rights groups said these killings pushed victims’ families deeper into poverty.

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Attack mode

Like Duterte who had nearly zero tolerance for critics, Kaufman also made sure to take a jab at the people and organizations his client has repeatedly attacked.

Media. Kaufman accused the media of using sensational headlines and of having editorial slant.

• He claimed that medias moguls “sell their papers while promoting the partisan agenda of their backers in power”; “The photographers are feted and their shots exhibited as art all over the world, and the brave journalists who act as their sources win awards and Nobel Prizes. And slowly but surely, their narrative becomes the sacred, unchallengeable, and unshakeable truth,” Kaufman said.
• Duterte often attacked journalists before, during, and even after his term. Under his term, Rappler faced over a handful of charges, including a shutdown order which was only voided after his term. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the newsroom’s CEO Maria Ressa and former researcher Reynaldo Santos Jr. were convicted of cyber libel for a story published four months before the law’s enactment.
• Broadcast giant ABS-CBN was shut down under Duterte’s term. Alternative news site Bulalat’s website was also blocked under him.

Human rights groups, academics. Duterte’s lawyer also claimed that the former president’s rhetoric made him a “natural target” for non-governmental organizations and human rights groups.

• Kaufman also attacked the academics who had studied and criticized Duterte’s drug war.
• “And so the pressure builds up and the academics who haunt the corridors of the progressive left law faculties far away in the United States, tweet their research and publish their articles pontificating about crimes against humanity, systematic attacks against the civilian population, and they point their finger at one man, one man alone,” he added.
• Apart from red-tagging, harassments, and arrests, many activists and human rights workers were also killed under Duterte. Data of human rights group Karapatan show there were 422 human rights defenders killed under the previous administration.

Preaching to the choir? What for?

“Your Honors, Rodrigo Duterte was, and will always remain, a unique phenomenon,” Kaufman said in the earlier part of his speech.

“We will ask you to send Rodrigo Duterte back to his family, and we will ask you to give back to the Filipino people their Tatay Digong,” the lawyer said at the end of his opening statement.

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It was no surprise that Kaufman echoed Duterte. After all, this same messaging – populist, appeal to emotion, assailing – is what made Duterte win in 2016.

For National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) president Ephraim Cortez, Kaufman’s speech only revealed the reason why Duterte wanted to delay the hearings.

“He has no credible defense. Kaufman’s opening statement reveals it all. He eulogized Duterte. He demonized the victims and human rights organizations in the Duterte way,” Cortez said. “He did everything except offer a credible defense for his client. At the rate things are going, Duterte is doomed.”

Since the speech was very similar to Duterte’s style, Kaufman’s messaging may also be seen as a direct communication to the former president’s supporters. The justifications on the drug war deaths, as well as the use of the word “Tatay Digong,” are all part of the narratives often used by Duterte supporters to defend their political idol.

Days before the hearing, Vice President Sara Duterte declared her bid for the presidency in 2028. The former president’s daughter is fighting for her family’s political survival amid their rift with Marcos.

Local experts in Davao City told Rappler in 2025 that the patriarch’s arrest gave a political boost to the rest of the family, helping them sweep the local races in their home turf in the midterm elections. So, will these new ICC hearings give Sara a boost too?

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“For me, Kaufman’s entire statement is not legal but rather political,” human rights lawyer Neri Colmenares, who was also at The Hague, Netherlands to support the victims’ families, told Rappler in Filipino.

“Will it benefit Sara? I don’t know, but for me, maybe because it feeds the narrative of Duterte supporters that may be used by Sara, of course. So, politically, it may be beneficial, but legally, how could they use that?” he added. – Rappler.com