By Optic Politics The Affidavit Exposes ICC Deception: How Prosecutors Twisted Truth Against Duterte OPTIC Politics | February 26, 2026 On February 23, 2026, the International Criminal Court, under Prosecutor Julian Nicholls, attempted to weaponize a video recording against former President Rodrigo Duterte, presenting it to a global audience as evidence of extrajudicial killings allegedly ignored by the Philippine leader. Yet the sworn affidavit of Davao journalist Ben Jason Tesiorna exposes this narrative as a deliberate, reckless, and legally indefensible distortion. Tesiorna’s affidavit details that he recorded the footage on December 19, 2013, during a media demonstration of Davao City’s newly installed Central 911 CCTV system. The purpose of this recording was straightforward: to showcase the system’s ability to capture incidents clearly, both in real time and for review. The footage was archival, not a live crime scene. No killings occurred during the demonstration. Police office...

Lifted from 25 February 2026 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐂𝐂 𝐡𝐨𝐚𝐱: 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐚 𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡 ‘𝐰𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐄𝐉𝐊𝐬’ 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐯𝐬 𝐃𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐞 February 23, 2026 | Read time: 9 minutes THE International Criminal Court’s (ICC) case against former president Rodrigo Duterte is an abomination and a huge, horrific hoax. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will go down in history as more ruthless than his dictator father, in his turning over of a frail 79-year-old former president who cracked down on illegal drugs to a sovereign entity, on false charges. He could have asked the Supreme Court to rule first on the constitutionality of surrendering a former — and extremely popular — president to a foreign entity. He instead ordered Nicolas Torre, his thug disguised as a police official, to forcibly bring the former president to the ICC, hoping that Duterte’s disappearance would dissipate his political base. Now, Marcos and the ICC appear to be intent on further trampling on our sovereignty...

Lifted Statement of Rep. Paolo Duterte Frankly, I do not know whether the ICC prosecutors are simply incompetent—or deliberately pretending to be blind because they are being guided by handlers here in the Philippines who are just as desperate as they are. Every time they roll out so-called “evidence,” it is the same recycled script– old testimonies, twisted narratives, and edited videos carefully shaped to fit their predetermined story against President Rodrigo Duterte. The video they relied on has already been publicly debunked by its own owner. It was taken out of context, distorted, and reinterpreted just so they could present something—anything—to the ICC.  And when the truth came out? Silence. No apology. No accountability. Is this justice—or trial by imagination? Now we hear allegations from former soldiers claiming that 2 million US dollars were allegedly handed out for ICC “expenses,” and once again, the same familiar political parasites appear–Asong Ulol Trililing and the...

Lifted from Transcript of Defense’ Lead Counsel Nicholas Kaufman   Opening Statement   Confirmation of Charges   23 February 2026      Mr. Cawthron, please. And I thank Mr. Butuyan for his intervention, but I feel that I ought to remind him that this is a court of law which decides matters on the basis of evidence, not on the basis of political demagoguery and not on the basis of a desire to affect regime change despite the democratic will. And certainly not on the basis of statements made by ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, who professed that domestic justice would be denied, according to Mr. Butuyan, because of the lack of forensic reports and police reports.      Now, I don't know which case Mr. Butuyan's metaphorical ship sailed into, but he clearly hasn't read the evidence. Whilst he was speaking, we examined the evidence and out of that evidence, we found at least 35 reports substantiating 49 of the incidents wh...

Lifted from FEBRUARY 24, 2026. MANILA. Teddy Adarna The timing could not have been more surgical. On the morning of February 23, 2026, the International Criminal Court opened its confirmation of charges hearing against former President Rodrigo Duterte in The Hague. 24 hours later Eighteen former Marines marched forward with claims so staggering they could swallow the news cycle whole: that they personally delivered P805 billion in cash in suitcases, counted bag by bag inside a Valle Verde mansion. That they exchanged $2 million in funds allegedly intended for ICC investigators. That former senator Antonio Trillanes IV one of the most visible advocates for ICC accountability was handed money to manage the tribunal’s investigators on Philippine soil. That the entire shadow economy of corruption ran through one node: fugitive ex-congressman Zaldy Co, now hiding abroad, with Interpol on his trail and billions allegedly on his conscience. The Philippines did not just wake up to a corruption...

Lifted from Sass Rogando Sasot 25 February 2026 "By accepting the possibility of dying in an ICC cell, Duterte completes this transformation. He ceases to be a defendant seeking justice from the court and becomes, in the eyes of his followers and for the historical record he is a martyr. He is a martyr not for a policy, but for the cause of sovereignty itself, for the principle that a leader’s fate should be decided by his people, not by a distant court backed by global power. The court, in its attempt to avoid being a show trial by giving him a voice, has allowed him to stage a counter-trial. And the final verdict in that counter-trial will not be delivered by the judges in The Hague. It will be rendered by a future generation, looking back at a man who, when placed before the bar of international opinion, refused to plead, refused to recognize the court, and declared his peace from within its own prison walls. In that act of total rupture, he has ensured that his story will outl...