THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Hundreds of overseas Filipinos who support former President Rodrigo Duterte gathered Friday, March 28, at a residents’ green space near the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) detention center in The Hague for a “picnic” to mark the detained leader’s 80th birthday.
Some attendees said they lived in the Netherlands but many others said they had traveled from other countries in Europe such as Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. Flags and T-shirts proclaimed others to have come farther north like Finland and Sweden. One banner identified themselves as overseas Filipino workers from the United Arab Emirates.
Duterte is in the custody of the ICC to face murder charges related to crimes against humanity over killings related to his drug war carried out from November 2011 to March 2019, first as mayor of Davao City and later as president of the Philippines.
Duterte’s supporters had assembled for a festive gathering of pot-luck Filipino dishes and snacks spread out on picnic blankets laid down on the grass on a cool spring day.
Amid the buzz of many conversations, performers on a makeshift stage belted out songs such as “In Your Eyes,” “Anak,” and “The Greatest Love of All”.
The facade of Prison Scheveningen where Duterte was being held loomed close in the background.
Imposing Dutch homes flanked the grassy area where the former president’s supporters stayed inside areas temporarily surrounded by low steel fences. A marked van watching from across the street was the only visible police presence.
‘Mother Dragon’
Shortly past noon, the emcee called in the “Mother Dragon,” who turned out to be Vice President Sara Duterte, the former President’s eldest daughter.
After cheers from the excited crowd died down, the younger Duterte thanked the gathered supporters and also called attention to similar gatherings in the Philippines. She enumerated a number of other European countries from where the former president’s supporters had come.
The Vice President said that the former president had asked his supporters not to “meddle” in his ongoing case at the ICC and let the case take its course.
“[Ang sabi niya ay] sabihin ko sa lahat ng supporters ni Pangulong Rodrigo Duterte at sa lahat ng mga abogado na kaibigan niya na…huwag tayong makialam sa kanyang kaso sa International Criminal Court. Hayaan natin ang kanyang mga abogado at ang Korte mismo na mag-desisyon kung ano ang mangyayari kaparte ng proseso ng Korte.”
(President Rodrigo Duterte asked me to tell his supporters and lawyer friends not to meddle in his case at the ICC. Let us leave it to his lawyers and to the Court itself to decide what will happen based on the procedures of the ICC.)
The VIce President then turned her attention to the coming May congressional and local elections, as she urged support for the senatorial slate of the PDP-Laban and its guest candidates, listing their names one by one.
She urged them to guard their votes, warning of possible cheating.
“Ang sabi niya (former president Duterte) ay bantayan natin ang ating boto dahil ang mga tao na desperado ay kung ano-anong pandaraya ang naiisip para lang manalo sila,” Duterte said.
(He said that we should protect our votes because there are desperate people who are thinking of all manner of cheating just to secure their victory.)
The younger Duterte also urged supporters to only send messages and stop sending packages which the ICC detention center’s rules did not allow to be brought inside. She said the former president had been sent clothes, even underwear, and, especially, lots of different chocolate, which she said, visitors like her had tasted to find out which was the best in Europe, but noted wouldn’t be good for her father’s diabetes anyway.
Vice President Duterte blew out the candles on a birthday cake brought out for the event and then had photographs taken with the crowd in the background. The crowd breaking into a “Happy Birthday” song expectedly came at the end of her speech.
Robin, too
Earlier in the morning, actor and Senator Robin Padilla was a magnet for admirers among the crowd as they formed little swarms with their cell phones when he quietly arrived and made his way through the crowd.
Padilla, who currently heads Duterte’s party, PDP-Laban, reiterated his support for the former president. Padilla also told the story of how he said he gave Duterte the idea for his trademark fist bump sign both to display strength and to replace the clenched fist punching into the air that Duterte formerly used, and which Padilla said could be confused with a communist-linked symbolism.
Padilla also exhorted the crowd to observe the rules set by local police as conditions for allowing the event in the residents’ area, telling them that, as with Duterte, his supporters should be known for their “discipline.”
Supporters of the former president would stay on for another hour or two after the Vice President’s speech, as the organizers reminded them of the 3 pm limit allowed by local authorities for the event.
The crowd broke out into cheers, as chants of “Du-ter-te!” and “Happy birthday!” occasionally punctured the air. They bopped to dance music, took selfies, and some video-blogged.
Former president Duterte — whose eight decades of life his supporters from all over Europe, wrapped in their coats and jackets in the cool Dutch spring, had just celebrated — continues to await the confirmation of charges hearing in September before the ICC. Back in the Philippines, with its sun and heat and storms, victims of a drug war that claimed thousands of lives, pin their hopes on the ICC. – Rappler.com