Disillusioned, not brainwashed

The International Criminal Court (ICC) case against Rodrigo Duterte has turned into something much messier than a simple hunt for justice. It has become a tactical card in a high-stakes poker game between the Marcos and Duterte camps.

When the “Uniteam” alliance finally collapsed, the administration suddenly found its appetite for international cooperation — right when Duterte became a dangerous political liability. It is no wonder national support for the ICC investigation crashed from 59% in early 2024 to just 32% a year later.

For a lot of Filipinos, especially the younger ones who already carry a healthy distrust of the elite, the Hague proceedings look less like a quest for truth and more like a contest between rival dynasties.

But there is a strange, almost hopeful paradox in the numbers if you look at the older generation. While everyone else is pulling back, Baby Boomers are the only group moving the other way. Their support for the President cooperating with the court actually grew — from 44% to 52%.

The thing is, this same group is also the most likely to view the drug war’s goals favorably. It is a bit of a head-scratcher until you consider memory. These are people who came of age during the shadow of the first Marcos regime’s martial law — a period defined by state violence that went unaccounted for decades. They seem to have a “cultural immune system” against impunity that younger generations, raised on a diet of digital revisionism, might lack.

Then you have the Gen Z “collapse.” On paper, it looks like a total retreat, with support for the investigation falling 39 points. But look at how they answered when things got concrete.

When asked if Duterte should stay in custody in The Hague to face his trial, Gen Z’s support only dipped from 60% to 50%. They held firmer on that specific question of accountability than any other working-age group. They haven’t necessarily abandoned the idea of justice; they have just grown skeptical of the political circus surrounding the “investigation”.

So, what do we actually do with this? We have to stop letting justice be a byproduct of elite infighting. If we want durable support for accountability, we need to strip away the dynastic drama and focus on the victims and the actual trial. The “undecided” pool has already doubled to 25%. People are not being radicalized; they are being lost to confusion and exhaustion.

The solution is to make the case for accountability independent of who is currently sitting in Malacañang. We need to ground the narrative in the human cost of the drug war — like the issues raised during the PHP 1 trillion scandals that fueled the Trillion Peso March — rather than letting it be a tool for one family to neutralize another.

The window for building that support is narrowing, and if we don’t fix how we talk about justice, it will remain just another weapon in a power struggle that most Filipinos are tired of watching.