Former President Rodrigo Duterte said “everything I did, I did for my country,” his daughter told reporters Friday.
Vice President Sara Duterte was briefing journalists at the detention center in The Hague after a long conversation with her father interned inside.
She also relayed that her father wants proceedings against him to move as quickly as possible, with the 80-year-old fearful of dying in custody.
“Everything I did, I did for my country. (I don’t know) whether that statement is acceptable or not, but I want it out to the world,” said the vice president, relaying her father’s words.
The vice president would not be drawn as to whether this amounted to an admission of responsibility for the crimes her father is facing at the ICC.
It was the first reported comments from the former president since he appeared tired and dazed at an initial appearance at the ICC, which he attended by videolink and barely spoke.
In a video posted when thr former president arrived in the Netherlands last month to face the charges, he had said “I will be responsible for all of this.”
Duterte stands accused of the crime against humanity of murder over his administration’s war on drugs campaign.
