There are moments in our nation’s story when politics must step aside and let humanity speak.
This week, Vice President Sara Duterte shared something deeply personal: a conversation with her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, during her visit to the International Criminal Court detention facility in The Hague. In that quiet exchange—between a daughter and a father, a leader and a man nearing the twilight of his years—he made a simple, solemn request: that he be cremated wherever he dies, and that only his ashes be brought home.
It was a wish wrapped in resignation. A man who once commanded the highest office in the land, now contemplating the possibility of dying far from it. No grand speeches. No demands. Just a quiet hope that, in the end, he might still return to the country he once led—even if only in spirit.
But must it come to that?
We are not here to debate the charges. The ICC will do what it must. History will have its say. But in this moment, we are not just citizens of a republic—we are Filipinos. And in our culture, we do not abandon our elders. We do not let our dead—or our dying—be left in foreign soil without a fight to bring them home.
Rodrigo Duterte is not just a former president. He is a father, a grandfather, a Davaoeño, a Filipino. And whether you stood with him or stood against him, there is no denying that he shaped the course of our nation. He is part of our story. And stories—especially the difficult ones—deserve closure, not exile.
This is not about politics. This is about compassion. About the kind of country we want to be. Do we believe in justice that is cold and distant? Or do we believe in justice that still makes room for mercy, for dignity, for the possibility of healing?
We urge the Philippine government to act—not to interfere, but to care. To explore every diplomatic and legal path that would allow the former president to return to the Philippines. To face what must be faced. To answer what must be answered. But to do so on our soil, among our people, with the dignity that every Filipino—no matter how controversial—deserves.
Let us not wait for ashes in an urn to remember that he was one of us.
Let him come home.
