ICC didn’t authorize Duterte’s launch, quote card is faux

Duterte stays in jail after dropping his enchantment for an interim launch. The picture used within the fabricated quote card, purporting to point out an ICC decide, is a deepfake.

Declare: A decide from the Worldwide Prison Courtroom (ICC) acknowledged that former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte might be launched from ICC custody and is about to return to the Philippines in 2026.

Score: FALSE

Why we fact-checked this: The TikTok video containing the declare has 230,200 views, 12,700 likes, 1,081 feedback, and 1,151 shares as of writing.

Textual content overlaid on the video reads: “Tatay Digong makakauwi ng Pilipinas ngayong taon ayon sa decide ng ICC?!”

(Father Digong to return to the Philippines this 12 months, in response to an ICC decide?!)

To assist the declare, the video presents a quote card attributed to a supposed “Choose Whitney Solomy Balungi Tyson Bossa.” 

The quote reads: “I now authorize the Worldwide Trial Courtroom to facilitate Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s return to the Philippines in 2026 as a press release of assist for the calls embodied within the signature marketing campaign of the folks underneath the banner ‘Tay, kami naman (Dad, it’s our flip now).’ I hereby acknowledge the signatures and collective enchantment of the Filipino folks. As we enter the 12 months 2026, amnesty is hereby granted to Rodrigo Roa Duterte and his cohorts. I additionally want to lengthen my warmest greetings for a really comfortable New Yr to all.”

The details: The quote card is faux. There is no such thing as a proof that any ICC decide made such a press release or accredited Duterte’s launch and return to the Philippines. No announcement or ruling supporting the declare seems on the ICC’s official web site.

The title cited within the viral quote card is deceptive. Whereas Solomy Balungi Bossa is an precise ICC decide, her title was altered within the faux quote card. She has not issued any assertion about Duterte, and she or he can also be not a part of the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I, which is dealing with Duterte’s case.

Vera Information reported that the picture of the supposed ICC decide used within the quote card is probably going a deepfake that mixes photographs of Bossa and a widely known comic within the 90s, Whitney Tyson.

Nonetheless detained: There is no such thing as a ICC announcement about Duterte’s supposed launch. The previous president stays detained in Scheveningen in The Hague, Netherlands, after dropping his enchantment for an interim launch final November 2025.

Duterte was arrested in March 2025 on fees of crimes in opposition to humanity linked to his drug struggle. His affirmation of fees listening to has been delayed after his camp claimed the previous president was not match to face trial. 

Requires drug struggle witnesses: In the meantime, the ICC’s Workplace of the Prosecutor renewed its name for witnesses to come back ahead in its investigation into Duterte’s bloody drug struggle. In a publish revealed on January 16, the ICC promoted a microsite it launched in 2024 to gather testimonies and knowledge from folks with direct data of alleged abuses dedicated throughout the struggle on medicine.

The Workplace of the Prosecutor is looking for accounts of killings, torture, and sexual violence allegedly dedicated between November 2011 and March 2019, a interval protecting Duterte’s time as Davao Metropolis mayor and the early years of his presidency. The ICC particularly urged members of the Philippine Nationwide Police and different legislation enforcement businesses to talk with investigators. – Marjuice Destinado/Rappler.com

Marjuice Destinado is a senior political science pupil at Cebu Regular College (CNU) and an alumna of the Aries Rufo Journalism Fellowship of Rappler for 2025.

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