Fall of a dynasty as Duterte family face legal jeopardy

The strongman former president faces criminal charges alongside his daughter and two sons.

Former resident Rodrigo Duterte fires a few rounds with a sniper rifle in Davao City in the southern Philippines. Picture: AFP

For eight years they have been at the pinnacle of power in The Philippines, commanding a broad, rich and influential network of politicians, business owners and senior police officers. But now the family of Rodrigo Duterte, the foul-mouthed former president, appear to be close to disaster.

Duterte, his daughter Sara, the present Vice-President, and two of his sons face the prospect of grave criminal charges, including an indictment for alleged crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

In addition, one of their richest and most powerful supporters, a charismatic televangelist, has been arrested after charges were brought against him in a United States court over the suspected sex trafficking of children.

Crucially, the Dutertes have become political enemies of their former ally, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos.

Having dominated politics first locally, in their home city of Davao, and then nationally, they are now on a downward trajectory.

“We are seeing the end of the Duterte dynasty,” wrote the Filipino academic and commentator, Antonio J Montalvan II. “[It] will emasculate the once-untouchable power of the Dutertes.”

Rodrigo Duterte, 79, won a huge election victory in 2016, but his six years in office were a period of controversy and bloodshed. His foul-mouthed personal attacks were the least of it (among other targets he called the Pope “the son of a whore”).

More consequential was his notorious anti-drug “war” in which thousands of people were summarily killed by police officers.

Apollo Quiboloy – known to his followers as the Owner of the Universe. Picture: AFP

Human rights organisations estimate that they included as many as 13,000 alleged drug dealers, along with hundreds of innocent bystanders, some of them children. Duterte has boasted about personally hunting down and killing criminal suspects in his former position as mayor of Davao. Since 2017 prosecutors at the ICC have been investigating the killings as potential crimes against humanity.

Among the family’s more recent problems is a claim that the Dutertes themselves were drug lords. Last month, Jimmy Guban, a former customs intelligence officer, testified before a Philippine congressional committee that Duterte associates, including his son Paolo, a congressman, and Manases Carpio, Sara’s husband, were the owners of huge lifting machines found to contain 355kg of crystal methamphetamine in 2018.

As a convicted drug trafficker himself, Guban is not the most credible of witnesses – and the Dutertes reject his allegations – but the claims that people behind the war on the drugs trade were secretly participating in it adds to a growing odour of disrepute lingering about the family.

Adding to the pong is the saga of Apollo Quiboloy, 74 – known to his followers as the Owner of the Universe – the founder of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, a Christian sect that claims millions of members in Ukraine, Hong Kong, Brazil and the US.

This month he was arrested after a 16-day search of his vast compound in Davao, also the site of an unfinished “Kingdome”, a 75,000-seat stadium under construction. Quiboloy is on the “most-wanted” list of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. He denies all the charges against him, which include fraud, smuggling of cash and running a human trafficking and child sex ring.

In the Philippines, he has been accused of rape, including the rape of children.

Quiboloy is one of the Dutertes’ biggest supporters. Even as police were searching for his hiding place in the compound, the ex-president’s son Baste, mayor of Davao, was deploring the operation and urging for it to be called off.

A week before he was found hiding in an underground bunker, Sara Duterte turned up in Davao to show support for Quiboloy, also known to his followers as the Name Above Every Name. When asked if she knew where he was, the Vice-President replied: “He’s in heaven.”

The chief of the Philippines National Police, General Rommel Marbil, has hinted that helping to harbour a fugitive could be the next charge brought against the Dutertes.

“Our investigation aims to identify those who knowingly provided refuge to Quiboloy, and we will ensure they face appropriate legal consequences,” he said. “The law is clear – no one is above it, and those who helped Quiboloy will be held accountable.”

Pivotal in all this will be the position taken by Marcos. When her father’s single allotted term was up, Sara gave up her own presidential campaign to support Marcos’s candidacy. As the self-styled “UniTeam”, they won a decisive victory in 2022. But now the alliance has fallen apart.

Asked about plans to impeach her in the Senate, Sara said: “We are just waiting for what they will do because it is expected that they will do that. What do they want to do? They want to make the Duterte family fall in politics.”

THE TIMES