DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Dutch police have reportedly stopped pro-Duterte Filipino migrants from occupying the park outside the International Criminal Court in The Hague due to the noise they are creating in the neighborhood.
According to a Facebook post last May 3 by Joel Vega, a Filipino artist and author based in the Netherlands: “The Dutch police instructed the ragtag DDS crowd to vacate the small park where they dance the budots and chant their prayers. Clearly, the residents there have enough of their insanity.”
Filipino migrants have come in numbers to the park since the arrest and detention of former President Rodrigo Duterte by the ICC on March 13 as he faced charges for authorizing the murders of thousands in his drug war campaign.
A recent social media video showed some of the Duterte supporters in The Hague doing those gyrating dance moves while budots music blared in the background. Budots was originated by a Davao disc jockey, an electronic dance music that featured high-pitched whistles and tweets with pulsating beats.
Based on Vega’s post, the loud music and chants by the Duterte supporters has disturbed the quiet neighborhood around the ICC.
Duterte remains in custody of the ICC and will stand pre-trial on September 23.
On the recent development of his, the ICC denied on May 6 a request from Duterte’s defense lawyers to excuse two ICC judges from hearing his case.
The lawyer asked that ICC Judge Reine Adélaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou and Judge María del Socorro Flores Liera be excused as both judges previously approved the preliminary investigation against Duterte. (davaotoday.com)
duterte, The Hague
