Duterte, the ICC, and the Global Reckoning With State Violence

There are moments in global politics that feel almost impossible until they happen. Watching former Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte stand before the International Criminal Court is one of them. It is a rare sight: a former head of state—once shielded by popularity, political machinery, and the rhetoric of “public safety”—now answering to a tribunal built precisely for the moments when nations cannot or will not hold their own leaders accountable.

What stood out immediately was the contrast in tone. The prosecution delivered its opening statement plainly, almost clinically. It was dry, yes—but strong because of that restraint. They laid out the grounds for the case with the confidence of those who know the facts are enough.

The defense, by contrast, leaned heavily on emotion. They resorted to personal attacks against individuals who allegedly misrepresented their cooperation with the ICC—accusations that have no bearing on the legal questions at hand. Their narrative was dramatic, even theatrical, but it rang hollow. It felt less like a legal argument and more like a performance meant to stir sympathy rather than address the substance of the charges.

The contrast matters. Because the law does not need theatrics. It needs truth.

The Philippine Reckoning

For Filipinos, this hearing is not abstract. It is personal.

We lived through the years when extrajudicial killings became normalized as a tool of governance. We watched as fear was weaponized, as institutions were weakened, as the language of “war” was used to justify the deaths of thousands of our own people—many of them poor, nameless, and voiceless.

When domestic accountability became impossible, the ICC became the only venue left.

This is not about political rivalry. It is not about ideology. It is about the moral cost of a nation that grows numb to its own wounds. A country that forgets its dead eventually forgets itself.

If this trial leads to conviction, it will not erase the grief of families who lost loved ones without trial or explanation. But it will affirm something essential: that the lives of the powerless matter, and that the powerful must answer for what they do in the name of “order.”

A Warning to Strongmen Everywhere

The implications of this case extend far beyond the Philippines.

If a former president can be held accountable for state‑sanctioned violence, it sends a message to leaders around the world who use “security” as a pretext for unchecked force. It challenges the idea—long assumed, rarely questioned—that state violence is automatically legitimate simply because the state performs it.

This is where the U.S. parallel becomes important.

In recent months, concerns have grown about the expanding authority of immigration enforcement agencies, particularly when individuals are labeled as “local terrorists” or “security threats” without transparent evidence. Civil liberties groups have raised alarms about the potential for abuse when suspicion alone becomes grounds for lethal force. The pattern is familiar: broaden the definition of threat, narrow the avenues for accountability, and justify extraordinary measures in the name of public safety.

The contexts are different, the histories distinct. But the underlying logic—the temptation to treat certain lives as expendable for the sake of national security—is a global one.

And that logic is precisely what the ICC is challenging.

When a court tells a former president, “You must answer for the deaths carried out under your authority,” it sends a quiet but unmistakable warning: State power is not a blank check.

The Moral Thread

Beyond the legal arguments and political implications lies a deeper question: What kind of societies are we becoming?

When governments normalize violence against their own people—whether through police operations, immigration raids, or counterterrorism rhetoric—something in the national conscience erodes. We begin to accept the idea that some lives are less worthy of due process, less deserving of dignity, less human.

The ICC trial is, in one sense, about Duterte. But in a larger sense, it is about us—about the world we are shaping, the leaders we tolerate, and the moral lines we allow to be crossed.

Accountability as a Gift

Accountability is not vengeance.
It is a safeguard for the future.

If this trial leads to conviction, it will not humiliate the powerful. It will honor the powerless. It will remind nations—including my own, including the United States—that the rule of law is not a tool for the strong but a refuge for the vulnerable.

The law may move slowly, but it moves. And when it finally arrives, it does so to say what many families have waited years to hear: Your lives mattered. Your grief mattered. Your dead were not forgotten.

Author’s Note

It is worth noting the paradox at the center of the defense strategically . Duterte’s team rejects the ICC’s authority, yet must rely on that same court to hear and validate their objection. Their argument against jurisdiction can only exist inside the very institution they claim has none. That tension frames the entire proceeding.

The latest signals from the Federal Reserve tell a story the political messaging won’t: the economy is not progressing in the way policymakers hoped. After a year of rate cuts meant to ease borrowing costs and stimulate growth, Fed officials are now openly divided on whether they may need to raise rates again if inflation refuses to fall. That kind of reversal is not the sign of a responsive economy. It is the sign of one that is stuck.

Behind the scenes, the concern is straightforward. Inflation remains stubborn. Growth is uneven. And the hoped‑for boost from tariffs—sold as a lever to revive domestic production and discipline global supply chains—has not materialized in any meaningful way. Tariffs raise costs before they raise output, and households feel that pressure long before any theoretical benefits arrive.

This is the part of the story that rarely makes it into political speeches: when tariffs push prices upward, the central bank has to respond. And when the central bank hesitates, or worse, considers tightening again, it means the underlying economy is absorbing more strain than expected.

In that context, the administration’s income‑tax reductions take on a different character. They are, in the familiar Filipino–Spanish idiom, ‘consuelo de bobo’—comfort offered in place of correction, a gesture that soothes without solving. In economic terms, it’s the kind of policy move that acknowledges public frustration without addressing the structural pressures that created it. When inflation remains sticky, when tariffs raise costs instead of productivity, and when the Fed itself is split on whether to cut or hold, tax relief becomes less a strategy and more a sedative. It calms the moment, but it does not change the trajectory.

The Editorial Room has long argued that economic policy is not a matter of slogans but of coherence. Tariffs without industrial strategy, tax cuts without productivity gains, and monetary easing without supply‑side relief do not add up to a stable path forward. They add up to a cycle of pressure, pause, and policy improvisation.

The Fed’s unease is not the whole story. But it is a signal. And it suggests that the economy is not simply “taking longer to respond.” It may not be responding at all.

In moments like this, tax breaks feel less like strategy and more like consolation. And consolation, however welcome, is not progress.

Every now and then, global politics offers us a moment so revealing that it almost feels like a parable. The latest one arrived in the form of the “Board of Peace,” a U.S.-led initiative meant to address the Gaza crisis — and the growing list of people and nations quietly declining their invitations to join it.

At first glance, the headline was the Pope’s refusal. But look a little closer, and you notice something more interesting: he wasn’t alone. Several countries also stepped back, some with polite diplomatic phrasing, others with silence that spoke just as loudly. And when multiple actors — religious, political, regional — all decline the same invitation, it’s worth paying attention.

Diplomacy, after all, is built on trust in the broker. Nations don’t just evaluate the plan; they evaluate the person hosting the table. They ask the same question any of us would ask before sitting down to mediate a family conflict: Is the person running this conversation someone who can hold the room steady?

And this is where the whole thing starts to feel like a scene from the Wild West.

Because what we have here is a peace table being set by someone known for bold, unpredictable, high‑conflict moves — someone who fires warning shots into the air to make a point — now stepping into the role of mediator between two deeply wounded communities. It’s the classic image of a happy‑trigger gunslinger trying to negotiate peace between the white villagers and the Indigenous tribes. Even if he means well, everyone’s hand is still hovering over their holster.

That’s not a partisan critique; it’s a structural one. In international relations, this is called role incongruence: when the personality, history, or posture of the would‑be mediator doesn’t match the neutrality required for the job. And when that mismatch is obvious, nations quietly decline the invitation. Not because they oppose peace — but because they don’t trust the process.

The Vatican said it plainly: crises of this magnitude should be handled by the United Nations, not by a single state or a single personality. That’s not a theological statement; it’s a diplomatic one. It’s the Church saying, “We’ll pray for peace, but we’re not stepping into a process that looks more like a political performance than a multilateral negotiation.”

And honestly, the countries that declined are saying the same thing, just in their own languages.

What’s striking is that none of this is about rejecting peace. It’s about rejecting a peace process that feels structurally unstable — one that places too much power in the hands of a single actor who is, to put it gently, not known for quiet mediation.

Peace requires a broker who is the calmest person in the room, not the loudest. Someone who can hold the tension without escalating it. Someone who understands that diplomacy is less about charisma and more about credibility.

So when the Pope and several nations all step back at once, it’s not a scandal. It’s a signal.

A signal that peace is too important to be handled like a showdown in the town square.

A signal that the world is looking for a mediator who doesn’t carry the energy of a Wild West outlaw trying to negotiate a truce with his hand still resting on the revolver.

A signal that real peace — the kind that heals, the kind that lasts — requires a table where everyone trusts the person at the head of it.

And until that table exists, the refusals will keep coming. Not out of defiance, but out of discernment.

In the hours following the Supreme Court’s decision to limit one of the president’s emergency tariff powers, the response from the White House was swift and unmistakably defiant. Rather than recalibrate, the president dismissed the Court’s reasoning as “ridiculous,” reframed a constitutional limit as a strategic advantage, and announced a new 10% global tariff under a different statute — treating the ruling not as a boundary, but as a hurdle to maneuver around.

This moment reveals more than a disagreement over trade policy. It exposes the deeper struggle between institutional limits and personal authority,

When the Court chose principle, power pushed back.

The president’s statement did more than challenge the ruling. It treated the Court’s decision as a technicality, something to be outflanked. It elevated a dissenting opinion as if it carried the force of law. And it suggested that presidential will can simply shift to another legal pathway whenever one is blocked.

Such a posture raises concerns not because of the individual involved, but because of what it signals about the relationship between the branches of government. The Constitution anticipates tension, but it also assumes a shared respect for the legitimacy of the limits themselves. When that respect weakens, the strain is felt across the nation.

Many are quietly wrestling with this: not only the policies, but the posture. Not only the decisions, but the defiance. The sense that the guardrails are being treated as obstacles rather than obligations.

And yet, the Court’s ruling stands. The building stands. The principle stands.

The question now is not whether institutions can act — they have. The question is whether they can withstand the pressure that follows.

This moment calls for vigilance, clarity, and a commitment to the boundaries that hold a democracy together. When power pushes back, principle must not retreat.

The Supreme Court’s latest ruling — a 6–3 decision limiting President Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs — triggered exactly the kind of reaction many expected. By nightfall, the president was publicly venting his anger, accusing the Court of being “disloyal,” and singling out the very justices he appointed. In his telling, loyalty is owed to him personally, and any deviation is betrayal.

But the Court’s majority did something quietly important: they stayed within their constitutional lane. They did not rule for or against a president. They ruled on the law. And in a political climate where personal allegiance is often demanded as the highest virtue, that restraint is worth noticing.

The president’s response, however, went further. Despite the ruling, he insisted he would still pursue new tariffs, claiming the authority already exists “in the law.” The implication is unmistakable: that presidential will can, by itself, create legal reality. That is not how the American system works — and the Court’s decision was a reminder of that.

This tug‑of‑war between institutional limits and personal authority is not new, but it is wearing on the country. It creates a sense of perpetual crisis, as if the nation is trapped in a loop where the same conflict plays out again and again: a president pushing the boundaries of power, and the courts pulling the reins back.

People are tired. And the question many are asking — quietly, privately — is simple: When does this end?

There is no date on the calendar. But historically, these cycles end in one of three ways: when institutions hold long enough to rebuild public trust; when political incentives shift away from conflict; or when a new generation of leaders emerges who value constitutional norms over personal loyalty.

For now, what we witnessed this week is a reminder that not every institution bends. The Court’s majority, including two of the president’s own appointees, chose principle over pressure. That does not solve the larger struggle, but it does signal that the guardrails are still there — scratched, dented, but intact.

And sometimes, in a season like this, that is the only good news available. But it is still good news.

The Supreme Court’s 6–3 decision striking down President Trump’s emergency tariffs did more than resolve a dispute over trade authority. It revealed a deeper tension in American public life: the widening distance between constitutional judgment and presidential expectation.

The majority opinion was steady and unsurprising. It reaffirmed Congress’s authority over tariffs, clarified the limits of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and treated the case as a matter of institutional design rather than political allegiance. In a season of noise, the Court chose the quiet discipline of the Constitution.

The president’s response moved in the opposite direction. Learning of the ruling during a White House breakfast, he reportedly erupted in anger, calling the decision a “disgrace” and railing against “these f***ing courts.” Later, he publicly attacked the justices who ruled against him — including two he appointed — while praising only the dissenters.

In that moment, two forms of loyalty came into view.

One is the loyalty the Constitution demands: fidelity to structure, limits, and the separation of powers.

The other is the loyalty the president often seeks: personal alignment, public defense, and the expectation that disagreement is disloyalty.

The Court’s majority chose the former.

The president demanded the latter.

This is the quiet crisis beneath the headlines. Not a fight over tariffs, but a test of whether constitutional duty can still withstand the gravitational pull of personal loyalty — and whether the country can still tell the difference.