Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in Manila by police acting on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant citing crimes against humanity tied to his deadly war on drugs.
"Early in the morning, Interpol Manila received the official copy of the warrant of the arrest from the ICC," the presidential palace said in a statement on Tuesday.
"As of now, he is under the custody of authorities."
The statement added that "the former president and his group are in good health and are being checked by government doctors".
Duterte was arrested after landing at Manila's international airport following a brief trip to Hong Kong.
Rodrigo questioned under what law and for what crime he had been arrested, according to a video posted by local media outlet GMA news.
"You have to answer now for the deprivation of liberty," Duterte said in a video that GMA said had been supplied by his youngest daughter, Veronica Duterte. It was unclear who the former president was speaking to in the video.
On Sunday, speaking to thousands of overseas Filipino workers in Hong Kong, the former president decried the investigation, labelling ICC investigators "sons of whores" while saying he would "accept it" if an arrest were to be his fate.
Duterte is still popular
The Philippines quit the ICC in 2019 on Duterte's instructions, but the tribunal maintained it had jurisdiction over killings before the pullout, as well as killings in the southern city of Davao when Duterte was mayor there, years before he became president.
It launched a formal inquiry in September 2021, only to suspend it two months later after Manila said it was re-examining several hundred cases of drug operations that led to deaths at the hands of police, hitmen and vigilantes.
The case resumed in July 2023 after a five-judge panel rejected the Philippines’ objection that the court lacked jurisdiction.
Since then, the government of President Ferdinand Marcos has on numerous instances said it would not cooperate with the investigation.
But Undersecretary of the Presidential Communications Office Claire Castro on Sunday said that if Interpol would "ask the necessary assistance from the government, it is obliged to follow".
Duterte is still hugely popular among many in the Philippines who supported his quick-fix solutions to crime, and he remains a potent political force. He is running to reclaim his job as mayor of his stronghold Davao in the May mid-term election.
Charges have been filed locally in a handful of cases related to drug operations that led to deaths, only nine police have been convicted for slaying alleged drug suspects.
A self-professed killer, Duterte told officers to fatally shoot narcotics suspects if their lives were at risk and insisted the crackdown saved families and prevented the Philippines from turning into a "narco-politics state".
At the opening of a Philippine Senate probe into the drug war in October, Duterte said he offered "no apologies, no excuses" for his actions.
"I did what I had to do, and whether or not you believe it or not, I did it for my country," he said.
