MANILA, Philippines – Supporters of former Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte staged a prayer rally on Saturday to condemn the Marcos government for allowing his arrest over an International Criminal Court (ICC) case.

Duterte, 79, is detained at the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands, over alleged crimes against humanity during his war on drugs in the Philippines. Even as human rights groups estimate around 30,000 deaths in Duterte’s drug war, he remains popular in this Southeast Asian country of around 85.65 million Catholics.

“Bring him home! Bring him home! Bring him home!” the protesters chanted, later shouting his name in unison. “Duterte! Duterte! Duterte!”

The Philippine National Police (PNP) said around 2,000 protesters attended the pro-Duterte prayer rally on Saturday. It was held at Liwasang Bonifacio, an iconic square in Manila dedicated to Filipino hero Andres Bonifacio, the leader of a revolutionary movement against Spanish colonizers over a century ago.

Leaders of the protest include the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, a Christian sect led by a man wanted by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation for alleged labor trafficking in America. Kingdom of Jesus Christ leader Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, 74, calls himself the “Appointed Son of God” and is a key Duterte ally.

Quiboloy, who was arrested in September 2024, is also running for senator in the May 12 national elections.

The prayer rally on Saturday was one of several protests held across the Philippines over the weekend — including in Duterte’s hometown, Davao City, where he was mayor for over two decades. It showed Duterte’s enduring popularity as well as the pervasive influence of religious groups in Asia’s biggest Christian-majority country.

During the prayer rally, key Duterte allies took turns delivering speeches onstage in the middle of prayers and hymns.

Eleanor Cardona, a representative of the Davao-based Kingdom of Jesus Christ, spoke of the long partnership between Duterte and Quiboloy in improving lives.

Cardona claimed that Quiboloy saw in a dream, 18 years before Duterte became president, that the former Davao City mayor was talking to generals in the presidential palace. She said Quiboloy’s prophecy was proof that, despite accusations that Duterte is a criminal and a womanizer, the populist leader is “ordained by God.”

She called for justice for both Quiboloy and Duterte.

“Do you believe in justice from heaven?” an indignant Cardona asked the protesters. “There is a court in heaven! God is hearing our prayers! If we don’t get justice here, there is justice in heaven!”

Duterte’s former police chief, Senator Bato dela Rosa, also attended the prayer rally on Saturday. It was Dela Rosa’s first public appearance in Metro Manila after Duterte’s arrest. Considered the architect of Duterte’s drug war, he had been rumored to be in hiding, in fear of an ICC warrant against him.

Dela Rosa criticized President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for allowing the International Criminal Police Organization or Interpol to arrest Duterte on March 11.

Duterte supporters have accused Marcos of citing cooperation with Interpol as a scapegoat for surrendering the former president to the ICC. The Philippines is no longer an ICC member-state after Duterte, during his time as president, withdrew the country’s membership in this international body.

“President Marcos always says, ‘We do not recognize the ICC because we’re not a member,’” Dela Rosa said on Saturday. “What reason did President Marcos give? Interpol! Bullshit!”

“I was once a PNP chief! I know Interpol’s role in the world! Don’t fool me!” the senator said at the top of his voice. “You are the President of the Philippines, and you will allow Interpol to pressure you?”

Duterte’s longtime aide, Senator Bong Go, also spoke and led the crowd in singing what he described as one of Duterte’s favorite Christian songs: “You Raise Me Up.”

Protesters waved Philippine flags and raised pro-Duterte sign boards as they sang religious and nationalistic songs in Duterte’s honor. A number of them cried as they bowed their heads down in prayer.

Bigger prayer rallies are set across the country on March 28, Duterte’s 80th birthday.

The Duterte family finds itself at the center of the country’s worst political crisis in years. While Duterte is detained at the ICC, his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, faces an impeachment case for allegedly misusing public money.

A prominent Catholic prelate, Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, warned the nation on Sunday about political divisions.

“It is not the will of God for us to be divided. The devil wants us disunited and splintered. The mission of Satan is to crush unity and fracture our wholeness,” said Villegas, one of Duterte’s staunchest critics.

Villegas, 64, was a former private secretary of the late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, who helped in toppling the late dictator Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, the incumbent President’s father in 1986.

The archbishop called for sobriety, rationality, and atonement among Filipino Catholics.

“The season of Lent calls on us to take responsibility individually for what we have become as a nation instead of blaming others,” Villegas said. “Let us begin with self-critique and open ourselves to a new kind of patriotism based on faith, not on ideology or partisan politics.”

“Let us not allow the Prince of Lies and Division to rejoice,” the archbishop said.