Vice President Sara Duterte on Sunday appealed to the Filipino community in Melbourne, urging them to persuade Australian authorities and other global leaders to investigate the perceived “injustice” surrounding the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) charges against her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is currently detained in the Netherlands.

During a nearly two-hour address at a rally, the Vice President articulated her stance that the ICC lacks proper authority over her father’s situation. She also alleged procedural irregularities by Philippine officials, claiming they failed to present the former President before a local court prior to his transfer to ICC custody.

“You convince the government of Australia—because Australia is a member of the ICC—to look into the case of President Duterte and the injustice that he is receiving, that he has been getting from the ICC,” she stated. She further mobilized the diaspora, calling on them to “talk to the government of Australia. Come together, sit down, come up with a position paper,” and to utilize both “local Australian media [and] the global community through your social media accounts” to highlight his case.

The younger Duterte did not mince words in her criticism of the ICC, suggesting a pattern of “discrimination” in the tribunal’s prosecutions. “Who does the ICC prosecute? Only the African countries. So we ask why are there no Western cases? Because they cannot,” she remarked. She cited recent international conflicts with casualties where the ICC remained silent, contrasting this with their involvement in her father’s case: “Why are they meddling with a president who was just doing his job for the country?”

The Davaoeña leader also posited that her father’s arrest was politically motivated, noting its timing with his nascent campaign efforts for an opposition senatorial slate in the upcoming 2025 midterm elections. She inferred that an “insecure administration” orchestrated the move to implicate him in their own “shortcomings and mistakes,” thereby hindering his ability to campaign for his chosen candidates.

Since the former President’s arrest and detention in March, the Duterte family has been vocal in its condemnation of the Marcos Jr. administration for permitting a Filipino national’s arrest by an international body on Philippine soil. Their core argument hinges on the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute in 2019, which they contend nullifies the ICC’s right to investigate the drug war. However, the ICC has previously asserted its jurisdiction, maintaining that the alleged human rights abuses occurred when the Philippines was still a signatory to the international tribunal.