In reviewing evidence, Rodrigo Duterte's defense disputes prosecution's spreadsheet with AI summaries

PRAGUE, Czechia - Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s defense argued that prosecutors cannot rely on a spreadsheet containing AI-generated summaries to facilitate the review of the voluminous evidence in his case before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In a filing made public on October 9, Duterte’s counsel Peter Haynes asked Trial Chamber III to allow them to respond to the relevance of the dataset the prosecution presented in a filing four days earlier.

The prosecution’s currently redacted dataset comprises 44,495 of the 62,034 items disclosed in Duterte’s case, as well as 8,812 of 19,241 items included on the Prosecution’s List of Evidence.

“The prosecution’s response gives the impression that the dataset is a complete archive of evidence demonstrating the number of people who were killed in police operations, as well as the deaths of drug personalities during the Presidential Period,” Haynes argued.

Duterte’s defense said the prosecution had provided a spreadsheet to help navigate thousands of documents through AI-generated summaries.

“Providing a spreadsheet to facilitate Defense navigation of thousands of documents by reliance on AI-generated summaries is no substitute for the Prosecution doing this work,” Haynes stated.

The defense argued that prosecutors were required to review the dataset in full and determine which material was incriminating, exonerating, or otherwise relevant. It also questioned what it described as the use of algorithms without human review of the content.

The defense also disputed the prosecution’s claim that the dataset underwent a “systematic and manual review”, saying the information in the dataset contradicted that claim.

“The Prosecution cannot be permitted to inflate the numbers by counting incidents in an incomplete dataset that its own provider has described as being full of irrelevant information nor having been fully reviewed,” the filing stated.

Burden to Duterte’s defense

In its October 5 filing, the prosecution asserted that it had disclosed to the defense redacted material it considered incriminating on a rolling basis.

“Items directly relevant to charged incidents were cited in the Confirmation Brief, and are cited in the Trial Brief,” the prosecution stated.

But Duterte’s lawyers are challenging that claim, and are now seeking permission from the Chamber to respond, arguing the prosecution has “mischaracterized” their position on the disclosure of material.

Haynes argued that “central background information is missing”, and that the prosecution had initially offered access to a separate platform or software with analysis capabilities.

The offer, Haynes said, was later withdrawn after the defense accepted it on July 17.

The prosecution then proposed uploading around 32,000 items to the standard DefenceJEM platform, according to the filing.

“It was proposed that this would be accompanied by an Excel spreadsheet so that the Defense could then apparently assess the relevance of each item itself and let the Prosecution know which items should be disclosed,” Haynes stated.

“This is a burden that no Defense team could or should ever accept to absorb.”

The defense also said the prosecution presented a “misleading and partial picture” of their exchanges over disclosure.

During the September 16 status conference, Haynes said the defense had also explored using artificial intelligence to deal with the voluminous evidence in the case, but found that a suitable AI tool could cost nearly half a million euros (at least P35 million).

Haynes made the remark after raising concerns about tens of thousands of documents disclosed by the prosecution. He also argued that prosecutors should have reviewed and sorted the materials before turning them over to the defense.

“We won’t assume responsibility to organize disclosed items,” Haynes said at the time.

The Chamber has yet to release a decision on the defense’s latest requests.

On October 13, the Chamber will convene the fourth status conference with the prosecution, defense, and victims’ counsel.

According to the ICC Public Affairs Unit, the Chamber expects Duterte to attend the hearing. — VBL, GMA News