Duterte’s ICC arrest is testament to journalists’ resistance in times of fear

I never imagined this day would come.

More than eight years ago, when I was an investigative journalist at ABS-CBN News, the then-largest media network in the Philippines, my editor told me that we should persist in documenting the death toll of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs because the day of reckoning would eventually come.

I chewed on her words with a great deal of scepticism. How could we foresee what was to come? We were barely a month into Duterte’s term. My team of young researchers and journalists had just begun the gruelling task of sifting through thousands of news reports to harvest data on those killed in Duterte’s so-called war against drugs–or more accurately, his war against small-time drug pushers, peddlers, and users.

Duterte was known for his tough stance on crime even before he became the president–when he was the mayor of Davao City in southern Philippines. His 20 plus years in public office were marked by vigilante killings of suspected petty criminals and drug users carried out by the so-called “Davao Death Squad.” While he denied being associated with the group, Duterte made statements that indicated he had no qualms about employing extra-judicial methods to curb crime.

When he was campaigning to become President in 2016, he made this same tough stance on crime, especially on illegal drugs, his platform. As president, he publicly urged both civilians and the police to shoot and kill suspected criminals and drug addicts. It is still unclear how many people were killed in this war, with numbers ranging from 6,000 to 30,000.

It did not take long for our team to discover patterns emerging from the data. We then tried to put faces to the numbers. We spoke with widows, orphaned children, and mothers left behind by their sons and daughters. We attempted to lend our voices to the unheard.

We then wove all of these stories together and published an investigative report series on Duterte’s War on Drugs.

Published in October 2016, just three months into Duterte’s presidency, it was the first comprehensive look into what would evolve into one of the most brutal campaigns in Philippine history.

A few years later, Duterte’s political allies would force my media organisation, ABS-CBN, off the air, leaving a gaping hole in the Philippines’ media and information landscape–a void that remains to this day.

Eight long years have passed since we began chronicling Duterte’s War on Drugs. Finally, on 11 March 2025, that day of reckoning that my editor foresaw arrived. Duterte was arrested on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity allegedly committed between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019. He is currently in ICC custody in The Hague.

Just as we did with his war on drugs, journalists covered Duterte’s arrest so that the world could witness this historic moment–not just in the fight for justice, but in the broader struggle against impunity.

Journalism in a time of fear

Duterte’s arrest is a stark reminder of the crucial role that journalism plays in uncovering the truth, holding power to account, and preserving the dignity of those whose voices are often silenced.

Journalists were among the first to bear witness to Duterte’s bloody war on drugs. At a time when fear gripped the nation–when state-backed killings were justified as a means to keep the streets “safe” from drug addicts, when Duterte, his propagandists and his supporters systematically undermined the media’s credibility–journalists persisted.

At a time when media organisations and individual journalists were forced to self-censor to avoid being targeted by Duterte and his allies, we turned our work into a form of resistance.

Together with human rights defenders, the clergy, civil society organisations, forensic experts, lawyers and legal activists, we documented the names and faces of the victims. We stood in the streets and alleyways, speaking with families who had lost their loved ones overnight. We sifted through official records to reveal the truth behind the government’s rhetoric.

We continued at great personal risk. Many reporters received death threats. Some were harassed, red-tagged (deemed to be communists, subversives, or terrorists with severe consequences), or labelled as enemies of the state. Many suppressed their trauma and emotional distress from seeing bodies piling up, night after night–and pressed on.

The cost of speaking truth to power

The closure of ABS-CBN was not just an attack on a media company–it was an attack on the people’s right to information. Duterte’s allies sought to silence critical voices, to erase evidence of his administration’s brutality. But the stories did not disappear.

The work of journalists and human rights defenders kept the spotlight on the extrajudicial killings, the grieving families, and the culture of fear that defined Duterte’s rule.

The meticulous documentation of each killing, the investigative reports that exposed the scale of the atrocities, became pieces of evidence. Building blocks for a case that would eventually lead to accountability.

Nothing will ever undo the suffering of the victims’ families. Journalists in the Philippines have also still not recovered from the collective trauma of those six years covering Duterte. The road to justice will be long and fraught with challenges. But this arrest is the first step in the fight against impunity.

Che de los Reyes joined IMS in 2022 to contribute to the larger initiative for press freedom and media development in the Philippines and in the Asia region. Even after leaving ABS-CBN News, she remains a journalist at heart.