Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s lead defense lawyer has accused Philippine media of crafting narratives that contributed to his arrest in The Hague.
During the opening of Duterte’s confirmation of charges hearing before the International Criminal Court (ICC) Pre-Trial Chamber I, lawyer Nicholas Kaufman argued that media portrayals shaped global perceptions of Duterte’s war on drugs.
“He spoke the tough tongue of the street. Not the dissembling discourse of international diplomacy, he said what the people wanted to hear, but he said it in a way that offended sensibilities of world leaders unaccustomed to hearing it. One in particular and that was what set him on slippery slopes to a prison cell in The Hague,” Kaufman said.
“And let me tell you how it works, it starts with the media,” he added.
Kaufman claimed outlets controlled by powerful interests favored sensational narratives, highlighting “salacious content” while ignoring context.
Dramatic reporting, paired with striking images of grieving families and crime scenes, he said, framed Duterte’s drug war as a global scandal.
“They print their glossy reports, replete with iconic photographic images of grieving families and dead bodies in rain-swept, nighttime crime scenes, all dramatically illuminated with the fluorescent glow of neon,” Kaufman said.
“And they gave their slick reports bold titles, lifted straight out of a James Bond movie, such as ‘license to kill,’ ‘one shot to the head,’ ‘you can die anytime,’ or simply they just kill.”
He argued these images are now displayed worldwide as “art,” while journalists’ accounts are treated as unquestioned fact.
Kaufman also cited award-winning reporting, including mentions of Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, as reinforcing a narrative he called an “unchallengeable truth.”