Only Duterte’s lawyer is ‘sure winner’

By Herbert Vego

THE way the British-Israeli lawyer of former president Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte handles his case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague, it is obvious that he does not have what it takes to prove him “not guilty of crimes against humanity.” You see, he has been moving heaven and earth to postpone the trial.

If we see a winner here, it’s only the lawyer, Nicholas Kaufman, who is touted to be receiving a fat professional fee of US $2.5 million per month from Duterte. Since today’s dollar-to-peso conversion is ₱57.90, that translates to more than ₱144 million per month.

Naturally, it would be more profitable for Kaufman to stick it out with his Filipino client as long as the latter needs him. But if the case drags indefinitely, how could Digong afford it?  Has he stashed away a billion dollars of unexplained wealth?

Why does the 80-year-old prisoner at ICC’s jail at Scheveningen, The Hague still pin his faith in Kaufman?  He knows that there is nothing he could do to overturn the evidence charging him with extrajudicial-killings.

Duterte has many times admitted that he kept a “death squad” to neutralize opposition politicians and adversarial media.

I believe that, being a lawyer himself, Duterte doubts the ability of Kaufman to win a judgment of acquittal for him. The best they could do is to find ways to postpone or abort the trial forever to save him from conviction and humiliation.

One of their desperate ways came in the form of the Philippine Senate’s Resolution No. 144, signed by 15 out of 24 senators, asking the ICC for interim release or house arrest on the grounds that Duterte is not in good physical condition and is suffering from cognitive decline.

The senators were lying.  It was only on September 23 when Duterte’s estranged wife Elizabeth Zimmerman and his granddaughter Isabelle Duterte paid him a visit and found him “very well.”

The ICC-accredited Filipino lawyer, Kristina Conti, called the resolution “self-serving,” considering that one of the resolution’s sponsors, Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, is a potential co-respondent of Duterte.

The 15 senators — Alan Peter Cayetano, Migz Zubiri, Bato Dela Rosa, JV Ejercito, Jinggoy Estrada, Win Gatchalian, Bong Go, Ping Lacson, Loren Legarda, Rodante Marcoleta, Imee Marcos, Robin Padilla, Erwin Tulfo, Joel Villanueva, and Mark Villar – are known “friends” of the former president.

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FEARFUL THOUGHTS ON EARTHQUAKE 

I was standing on the balcony of the 23rd floor of Signa condominium in Makati City on Monday night (Sept. 29). The view was more daunting than spectacular. Taller buildings were all around.

“What if,” I mused, “earthquake strikes this building apart? I would need a miracle to survive.”

There had been predictions about “the Big One” or magnitude 7.2 earthquake to hit Metro Manila. I hardly slept because of that.

I also remembered the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Thailand and Myanmar in March, levelling down a 30-story building and damaging other structures, killing more than 4,000 people and enduring 5,000-plus.

One night later (Sept. 30), I was back to Iloilo, in time to experience the widespread, magnitude 6.9 earthquake that affected most of the Visayas.

While it is not yet possible to predict an earthquake, we are prone to it because of the so-called West Panay Fault that covers a 90-kilometer stretch.

Faults are fractures in the Earth’s crust where rocks are under stress from plate tectonics, causing the ground to move and generate an earthquake.