HOPE FOR DUTERTE DRUG WAR VICTIMS AT HAGUE

Mary Ann Pajo watched quietly as cemetery workers opened her son's tomb in Manila this week and removed his body for examination by a forensic pathologist.
Accused of dealing drugs, 30-year-old Joewarski Pajo was shot dead while playing a game on his phone, one of thousands of extrajudicial killings alleged to have taken place under former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte.
A hearing begins at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday that will determine whether Duterte will stand trial over at least 76 of those deaths.
'This hearing is what we have been waiting for', Father Flavie Villanueva said after saying a prayer over Joewarski's remains, the 126th body his non-profit group has exhumed as potential evidence.
'It is important that (Duterte) faces the court in person, physically, for us to see if there is remorse on his part', said Villanueva, a fierce critic of the former president's so-called drug war.
However, the hope that Duterte would appear in person disappeared on Friday when ICC judges ruled that the octogenarian could waive his right to attend the hearing.
'I am old, tired and frail', Duterte had said in a filing making the request days earlier.
Villanueva called Duterte's request cowardly when reached on Thursday, noting the former president had already been declared fit to stand trial. 'Accountability is something this person has no concept of', he said.
At a Manila coffee shop staffed by family members of those killed in the drug war, three employees said they believed justice would not have been possible in the Philippines.
'No one in the Philippines can lay hands on Duterte, much less file cases against him', said Lydjay Acopio, whose three-year-old daughter Myca was killed in a police raid on the home she shared with her father.
Fellow barista Rosalie Saludo agreed: 'As long as his daughter (Vice President Sara Duterte) is in office, as long as his allies are in office, he can still find a way to twist and distort justice'.
Sara Duterte announced her 2028 presidential candidacy on Wednesday.
Mary Grace Garganta, manager of the coffee shop, said she had been forced to move after police without a warrant shot and killed her father in 2016. She was afraid of what might happen to family members 'now that I'm speaking up'.
'I won't deny that my father was involved in drugs, but that was not a reason to kill him', she said. — AFP