ALBAY — In Southeast Asia where impunity is common, human rights expert and current executive director of the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights Yuyun Wahyuningrum  sees former president Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest as a defining moment.

As such, she finds it crucial for ASEAN  countries “to support this process of international justice and let it [happen].”

She, along with many human rights defenders, can’t believe this is happening, but it gives her hope that the system can still work despite its flaws.

“The arrest is something, a message to the leaders that impunity is not forever,” she said.

She emphasized that, while this is the first time an authoritarian state leader in Southeast Asia will be tried for a crime against humanity at the International Criminal Court, ASEAN member states must “put the non-interference principle in its place.”

“What the region needs to do is to support, because right after the arrest, China made a press conference saying, this is a domestic issue, this is politicization, and so on. I hope ASEAN member states and ASEAN itself support the process,” she told Bulatlat in a Zoom interview.

In her op-ed at Jakarta Post, she stated that ASEAN must adopt a more proactive approach by enhancing cooperation between domestic institutions and international bodies like the ICC. Moreover, she argued that the international community should set aside self-serving interests that harm justice and work together to protect the rights of those impacted by state violence. “Such a stance honors the marginalized while paving the way for a future where power is exercised responsibly and transparently.”

According to her, ASEAN, as a norm-setting organization, needs to be able to establish a mechanism that can cooperate with this process of justice since justice is often defined at the national level through the constitution, but not necessarily at the ASEAN level.

She warned that if ASEAN doesn’t address now the region’s injustices, such as the junta’s genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar and enforced disappearances in Cambodia, like the Wanchalearm Satsaksit case, it will continue to be haunted by its complicity in authorities’ persistent evasion of accountability. 

“It’s time to look into how the region can define justice. And this, the Philippine case, should be one of the examples of how ASEAN should proceed,” Wahyuningrum said, adding that the intergovernmental organization will issue the ASEAN Community Blueprint for 2026-2045 this year under Malaysia’s presidency.  (RVO)