Davao

As mayor of the crime-ridden Davao City, Duterte admitted to leading the Davao Death Squad composed of ex-cops and NPA defectors who executed hundreds of small-time drug users, peddlers, thieves and street kids, plus the occasional unlucky witness.

He pledged to expand the Davao Death Squad model nationwide.

The ICC investigation covers 2011-2019, which includes the period when Duterte was mayor of Davao, a sprawling metropolis in the country's south, where his family has held power for decades.

Duterte built a reputation for Davao as one of the Philippines' safest cities, and cultivated the image of a tough-talking, anti-establishment man of the masses to pull off a dark horse win in the 2016 presidential elections.

Complaints filed against Duterte at the ICC allege that he kept a "death squad" of bounty hunters to go after drug suspects in Davao, and later replicated this model on a national scale when he was elected president.