Once deemed by most as politically invincible—and by others as “God’s anointed”— Rodrigo Duterte now finds himself imprisoned at The Hague, where he might spend his remaining years. Enforcing a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Philippine police arrested the former president on 11 March at Manila’s main airport as he returned from Hong Kong.

The ICC charged Duterte with crimes against humanity committed during his presidency’s “war on drugs” and when he was mayor of Davao City. It was in these early years as mayor (1998–2008) when he formed and oversaw his motorcycle-riding “Davao Death Squad”, which summarily killed and disappeared over a thousand petty criminals, and which he scaled up nationally after his 2016 election. At the end of his presidency in 2022, the drug war had snuffed out more than 30,000 lives and destroyed alongside them many more livelihoods, most from Manila’s slums.