From Duterte’s Mouth to the People’s Pain

Rodrigo Roa Duterte once said that he cared about human lives, not human rights. It was a line meant to sound tough, decisive, even heroic. But strip away the bravado, and what remains is a hollow creed.

Because what is a life without rights? It is a body without dignity, a survival without freedom, a shadow without meaning. To deny rights is to reduce human lives to mere statistics… breathing, but silenced; existing, but unprotected.

The International Criminal Court’s refusal to grant Duterte interim release is more than a legal ruling. It is a rebuke to that dangerous rhetoric. Families of victims rejoice because the ICC has affirmed that justice is not about prolonging lives under fear, it is about restoring the rights that give those lives value.

Supporters may cry bias, branding the ICC as illegitimate. But their outrage cannot erase the truth: human rights are the measure of human lives. Without them, life is not safeguarded, it is disposable.

Duterte is wrong! To pit lives against rights is to pit flesh against spirit, survival against dignity. And history will remember that those who cheered for rights were the ones who truly defended life.

The families who lost loved ones in the drug war understand this viscerally. Their grief is not only for lives taken, but for rights denied, the right to due process, the right to safety, the right to dignity. Their rejoicing today is a reminder that accountability restores both life and rights to their rightful place. Meanwhile, Duterte’s supporters continue to discredit the ICC, clinging to nationalist defiance. But sovereignty cannot be a shield for impunity. Justice is not foreign interference, it is the universal language of human dignity.

The ICC’s decision is a turning point. It tells the world that no leader, no matter how powerful, can rewrite the meaning of justice. Lives and rights are inseparable. To defend one without the other is to defend neither.

Human lives without human rights are not victories, they are tragedies. Justice demands both. The denial of Duterte’s interim release is not just a legal milestone, it is a moral one. It is proof that the world still believes in dignity, accountability, and truth.

And for the Philippines, it is a reminder: true leadership is not measured by how many lives are spared, but by how many rights are upheld.