From cinema to the Hague: Contextualizing murder as a crime against humanity in Duterte’s war on drugs

This article analyzes the articulation of the contextual element of crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor’s Request for authorization for an investigation (Philippines) and Treb Monteras’ film Respeto (Respect) (2017). It reveals a corroborative discourse between film and law which dis-articulates the fact patterns presented by former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s government (2016–2021), and re-articulates the cases of murders in the war on drugs as constitutive of a pattern of system criminality. Through an analysis of this discursive alliance between law and film, the article reveals new insights into the nature of context-making in cinema and international criminal law and shows how the co-contextualization of the Philippine situation through a reading of Respeto and the Request can achieve a broader understanding of the Philippine’s war on drugs, which is now under investigation by the ICC. Copyright © 2025 Jose Duke Bagulaya.