DFA: Nothing irregular with consular visit on Rodrigo Duterte

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Wednesday confirmed that it conducted a consular visit to former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is currently detained at an International Criminal Court (ICC) detention facility in The Hague, Netherlands, but stressed that there was nothing irregular about it.

"This is a duty of all Philippine Foreign Service Posts and is no different from what the DFA does for other Filipino citizens who are in detention abroad," DFA spokesperson Angelica Escalona said in response to allegations by the former president's daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, that the embassy personnel's visit was "under the false pretense" of a welfare check.

"Officials from the Philippine Embassy in the Hague visited former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte at the Detention Center of the International Criminal Court to conduct a welfare check. This is in line with its functions under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and relevant Philippine laws to protect the welfare of all Filipinos," Escalona said.

LOOK | Here is what the ICC detention center looks like

Duterte, 80, who oversaw a deadly and brutal war on drugs, was arrested in Manila on March 11 this year on the basis of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court. He is detained in the Scheveningen Prison in The Netherlands while awaiting trial for charges of crimes against humanity. 

The ICC started its probe on the massive drug killings as possible crimes against humanity under Duterte from November 2011, when he was still mayor of Davao City up, to March 16, 2019–a year after Manila's termination of its membership to the Rome Statute took effect.

Duterte's deadly crackdown on drugs left more than 6,000 drug suspects dead and hundreds of thousand others arrested. — VDV, GMA Integrated News