[Inside the Newsroom] In The Hague, my morality was on trial

It’s easy to romanticize an assignment like The Hague. It’s the pre-trial of the decade. It’s historic for the Philippines, Asia, and the world. All eyes were on the International Criminal Court (ICC). It’s a prestigious assignment, sure, but I can tell you I felt no prestige having my morality, my values, and my humanity as a Filipino be put on a public trial like that.

Hi, I’m Lian Buan, and I just recently came home after covering the weeklong confirmation of charges hearing against former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte.

LIVE FROM THE HAGUE. Doing a live report from the ICC’s media center. Photo by Tristan Nodalo of NewsWatch Plus

I’ve been reporting on the ICC’s Philippine situation since early February 2018, or eight years ago. Raw information reached me that the prosecutor back then, the Gambian Fatou Bensouda, had decided to open a preliminary examination into the country.

[READ] Int’l Criminal Court takes 1st step in probe into Duterte drug war

I have since reported on this case from all possible angles: the tedious legalese, such as jurisdiction, the limits of international justice, the risks to victims, and, in 2021, the grant of limited immunity to a star witness. 

When I found out that the newsroom could send me to The Hague for the pre-trial, top of my to-do list was to find an answer to a burning question: Why does Duterte enjoy overwhelming support despite the killings?

My first stop was “Duterte Street,” a cordoned-off block across the street from the Scheveningen prison complex, where pro-Duterte supporters gather almost every day. They eat and talk and live-stream all their activities (sometimes even quarrels); when they’re not there, the cutouts of their idol are placed in a porta-potty. I came to ask what draws them to a man who has time and again said “kill.”

I spoke with Alvin Sarzate, an eloquent Butuan native who came to the Netherlands in 2017 to pursue further studies. His passion is sustainable tourism, but he has become a political vlogger in the Duterte sphere. I asked him, “What did you think when you saw news back home that killings were happening?” He said, it was media propaganda, a mischaracterization of the war on drugs. “But ultimately, as a Mindanaoan, I do believe that it was necessary.”

He continued: “Because even if you wander the streets anywhere else in the Philippines, it was quite dangerous already. Your life is basically at the discretion of a criminal.”

“Of course it’s wrong. Killing in itself is wrong. It is unacceptable. But to underscore what happened in the war on drugs as a mere killing, ultimately [as if they were] defenseless, [as if they were killed] without any reason, is completely false.”

Some people say we shouldn’t give a platform to those who cheer on killing. I say maybe do not give them a microphone, but to not listen to them would be a terrible mistake. We got to this state of believing that killings are necessary because we did not listen to each other.

I spoke with other pro-Duterte Filipinos, and there is a common thread to their answers:

• During his time, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration responded quickly to the concerns of overseas Filipino workers.
• During his time, drivers of tour pedicabs had bigger take-home pay, and now the operators get more cuts. 
• Because of him, our passports are now valid for 10 years, and we no longer have to go through the hassle of frequently renewing them. 
• We got social welfare benefits through Project Malasakit of Senator Bong Go. (Note that Malasakit is Go’s branding for an existing Department of Social Welfare and Development mechanism.)

All of those reasons had nothing to do with killing. No one said, “I like a president who kills.” Everyone cited an economic reason. And isn’t quality of life the great center of politics? Put a pro-Duterte and an anti-Duterte in one room and you’d find that their common denominator is wanting a good life for themselves and their families. In some extreme circumstances, they’d be okay with a trade-off: kill the others, kill the bad ones, just not me and my family. Even some of the drug war victims had felt this way, until they became victims themselves.

That nagged at the back of my mind, although I know that my assignment wasn’t to solve the country’s biggest paradox. Or maybe it was? I also know that some of those sentiments were driven by desperation from poverty, from social inequality, from government inaction, and then exacerbated by misinformation. I should know, I come from a place where people, relatives included, scorn my job because they like Duterte.

When I was starting out as a justice reporter, I liked approaching a story from a legalistic angle, to break down the law and explain its nuances. But, over the last couple of years, I realized that I had neglected the most important audience: the common Filipino just looking for a story to hold on to, to move them, and to give them hope.

The weekend before the hearings, I requested to talk to a couple of victims who had gone to The Hague, and I just wanted to know how it was like for them coming to the Netherlands. Are they enjoying the city at all? Are they coping okay with winter? Have they walked around? It was an attempt to have them speak to the audience human to human, Filipino to Filipino, not a victim to a pro-Duterte supporter. 

Their answer to my question? They felt fearful and anxious being in The Hague. That is not a neutral sentiment, but I hope that migrant Filipinos who support Duterte could read that and sympathize with their fellow countrymen going overseas.

The Filipino diaspora, after all, is a wonderful phenomenon. Nothing comes quite as close to the natural alliance and solidarity one can foster with a fellow Filipino abroad. But Duterte changed all that. Now Filipinos do a political check on who they meet abroad. The division is so bad that victims had to have an ad-hoc security plan to protect them from the Duterte group.

PROTESTS AT THE HAGUE. Reporting from a human rights protest in front of the ICC the weekend before the hearings. Photo by Hon Sophia Balod of GMA Integrated News

Marilou Werning, who is based in Germany, went to The Hague that same weekend to join the victims in protest. “It’s the least I can do for my conscience,” she told me in Filipino. “I lost a lot of friends [but] try to win them over, try to look for a common ground,” Werning said, referring to pro-Duterte supporters, “and don’t use really harsh words, and win them over with food.”

Food is really an equalizer, having been offered food myself on Duterte Street. 

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At our newsroom’s post-mortem meeting on the coverage, I admitted to a mistake: I did not pay much attention to some parts of the hearing that I thought weren’t at all new — for example, the prosecution’s case theory that Duterte ordered and abetted the killings. In my mind at the time, these were old news, things I had already reported on. (RELATED STORY: Prosecutor Bensouda: Duterte policy enabled killings and cover-up)

But our executive editor reminded us that this would be the first time all these things are said in court, under oath, on the record, for all of the world to hear. Maybe Filipinos can have a second reckoning with themselves, and check if they’re okay to be held guilty of believing that killing is necessary. 

READ STORIES FROM THE HAGUE:

• Highlights of the pre-trial on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4
• Watch the interview with Paolina Massidda, the Italian lawyer for the Filipino victims
• Watch the interview with Nicolene Arcaina, the Filipino case manager for victims
• The treacherous road to The Hague for the victims, their lawyers, and advocates (Watch the video version of this story here.)
• Duterte: The ‘prized’ and ‘peculiar’ catch of the ICC

– Rappler.com