The International Criminal Court (ICC) is continuing its confirmation of charges hearing against former President Rodrigo Duterte in The Hague, where prosecutors outlined and presented evidence that he encouraged the mindset of shifting blame to victims in cases of alleged extrajudicial killings.
On Day 2 of the proceedings, ICC trial lawyer Edward Jeremy from the Office of the Prosecutor argued that Duterte ordered his followers to be ready to shoot and kill suspected criminals, citing public records and witness accounts.
The prosecution team also highlighted a pattern in police reports describing suspects as having “fought back” or “nanlaban.” The term was repeatedly used in nearly identical reports to characterize questionable police operations as acts of self-defense.
“In this context, as witnesses explained, the police often used the term ‘nanlaban,’ which translates to ‘fighting back’ to describe incidents in which they supposedly shot a victim in self-defense. And these reports were often almost identical, in essence, copy-paste reports in which victims were frequently blamed for their own deaths,” Jeremy told the ICC.
