So, here we are again. We are looking at another circus in a place that is supposed to be serious. The place is **The Hague**. That is in the Netherlands. It is cold there. It is gray. It is full of guys in boring suits who charge a lot of money to talk about rules. This is where the **International Criminal Court (ICC)** lives. The ICC. They are the people who are supposed to put the bad guys in jail when the bad guys run whole countries.

But outside this boring building, there is a party happening. It is loud. It is angry. But it is also happy? It makes no sense. There are people there waving flags. They are chanting. They are cheering. And who are they cheering for? A pop star? A soccer player who just scored a goal? No. They are cheering for **Rodrigo Duterte**, the former president of the **Philippines**.

Let’s be real about who this guy is. He isn’t a nice grandpa. He was the guy who told everyone he would kill drug users. And then, surprise, a lot of people died. Thousands of them. Street corners turned into crime scenes. Poor people got shot in the dark. It was a bloodbath. He called it a **"War on Drugs."** I call it state-sponsored murder. But hey, I’m just a guy watching the world burn.

Now, the ICC is finally looking at the evidence regarding these alleged **crimes against humanity**. They are "weighing" it. That means they are taking their sweet time. They are looking at photos and reports of dead bodies and wondering if maybe, just maybe, that was a crime. It takes them years to decide what a five-year-old could tell you in five minutes. Killing people without a trial is bad. It’s not rocket science. But for the lawyers in The Hague, it is a career. They will have meetings. They will drink coffee. They will write long papers that nobody reads.

But the real joke isn’t the slow lawyers. It is the fans outside. Look at them. They flew all the way to Europe or took trains just to stand there and yell. They are defending a guy who treated human life like garbage. Why? Because he talked tough. Because he made them feel like big shots. Humans are funny like that. They don’t want freedom. They want a daddy. They want a dad who beats up the neighbor they don’t like. Even if that dad is a monster, he is *their* monster.

This is what happens when you give up on thinking. These supporters believe the lies. They think Duterte saved them. They think the dead people deserved it. It is a cult. It is no different than the people who worship politicians here in America. It doesn’t matter what the leader does. He could shoot someone on live TV, and his fans would say the victim shouldn't have been standing there.

The saddest part is that Duterte probably doesn’t care about them. He is sitting pretty. He has his money. He has his power base back home. He looks at these protests and probably laughs. He knows the secret to politics. You don’t have to be good. You just have to be loud and scary. If you scare people enough, they will thank you for it.

So, the fans scream in the cold Dutch air. The lawyers inside shuffle their papers. The evidence sits in a box somewhere. And the dead stay dead. Nothing changes. The ICC might issue an arrest warrant one day. Maybe in ten years. By then, everyone will have forgotten. Duterte will be old or gone. It is all a show. It is theater for ugly people.

We pretend there is something called justice in this world. We pretend that if you do bad things, you pay for it. But look at The Hague today. The bad guy has a fan club. The good guys are stuck in meetings. And the rest of us just watch and wonder why we haven't been hit by a meteor yet. It is pathetic. It is predictable. It is exactly what we deserve.

***

**REFERENCES & FACT-CHECK:** * **Original Event:** Supporters of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gathered outside the International Criminal Court in The Hague. * **Context:** The ICC is currently weighing evidence regarding allegations of crimes against humanity committed during Duterte's "War on Drugs." * **Source:** [The New York Times: Duterte’s Fans Rally in The Hague as the I.C.C. Weighs Evidence Against Him](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/world/asia/philippines-icc-duterte-supporters.html)