Rodrigo Duterte on Villamor detention: ‘I was brought here not out of my own volition’

Former President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday questioned why he was being detained at the Villamor Air Base following his arrest for crimes against humanity.

On Instagram, Veronica "Kitty" Duterte shared a photo of her father sitting in a lounge of Villamor Air Base with text, “Illegal detention. No warrant of arrest.”

She also shared a series of stories where Rodrigo Duterte was seen asking for the basis for his detention.

“What is the law and what is the crime that I committed?” Duterte asked.

“Show to me now the legal basis for my being here. Apparently, I was brought here not of my own volition, it's somebody else's. Kung hindi ibang tao, ikaw siguro because this is your structure. So, you have to answer now for the deprivation of liberty,” he added.

Former executive secretary Salvador Medialdea, who was there with the Duterte family, said that the former President does not even know the charges against him.

“And then hindi ba kayo naa-ano na ganito ginagawa natin? Sumusunod tayo sa isang entity na hindi na tayo miyembro? Nag-withdraw na tayo,” Medialdea said.

(Are you not concerned that we are following an entity which we are not even a member of? We already withdrew.)

Duterte's daughter, Kitty, also posted an Instagram story showing the former president being checked by doctors.

Earlier on Tuesday, Malacañang confirmed that Duterte is under the custody of authorities, saying that a prosecutor general from the International Criminal Court (ICC) served a warrant of arrest against the former president when he arrived in Manila from Hong Kong.

To recall, the Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, in 2019 after The Hague-based tribunal began a probe into the Duterte administration's drug war.

The ICC has been investigating Duterte and other top officials of his administration for crimes against humanity over the alleged systematic drug war deaths in police operations.

These deaths reached around 6,000 based on police records, but human rights groups contend that the deaths were as much as 30,000, including vigilante killings.—Giselle Ombay/AOL, GMA Integrated News