Manila, Philippines – When former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in March, Sheerah Escuerdo spoke to a local television station, welcoming the politician's detention on charges of murder linked to his war on drugs. Escuerdo, who lost her 18-year-old brother, Ephraim, to Duterte's war, clutched a portrait of her sibling during the interview with News 5 Everywhere as she demanded justice for his killing. Days later, she was shocked to find an AI-generated video of her slain brother circulating on Facebook, in which he said he was alive and accused his sister of lying. Are they paying you to do this?" the computer-generated image of Ephraim said. The video, posted online by a pro-Duterte influencer with 11,000 followers, immediately drew thousands of views on Facebook. One of the comments read, "Fake drug war victims". It was Escudero and her brother's image from her News 5 Everywhere interview that the influencer had used to ...

Manila, Philippines – Leila de Lima was released from detention last month into what the former Philippines senator calls "a whole new world". In 2016, then-President Rodrigo Duterte promised to "destroy" de Lima, one of the loudest critics of his deadly drug war. The president's supporters began targeting the first-term senator and former human rights commissioner – ridiculing her for an alleged romantic affair with her driver, and accusing her of involvement in drug trafficking. In February 2017, she was arrested on drug charges she denies and that international observers have said are politically motivated. "I had this deep sense of disbelief," de Lima told Al Jazeera. "I never thought that Mr Duterte would go to that extent, that length, of jailing me. I thought it would just be daily vilification, personal attacks, attacks against my womanhood."

Predicting future events is hard, but it's among the most important tasks a journalist can perform. Especially if you work at a section called Future Perfect. Our mission is to explain the world around us to our readers, and it's impossible to do that without anticipating what comes next. Will inflation continue to rise in the US and Europe, or level off? Will the Supreme Court allow states to ban abortion, eliminating legal access in red states? Will Brazil's 212 million people be led by a left-wing populist, or a far-right anti-vaxxer? All of these questions matter, and preparing ourselves for potential outcomes -- and having a good sense of how likely specific outcomes are -- is a major part of explaining the world accurately. And if policymakers could rely on accurate predictions about the outcome of a foreign war or the advisability of a budget proposal, they could make much better policy decisions. Being good at predictions is a skill like any other -- you have to practice it.

WASHINGTON – The United States is weighing additional support to the Philippine military to fight an Islamist insurgency in the south, a U.S. defense official said Tuesday. Discussions are "pretty advanced" and would see the U.S. provide increased surveillance drone capabilities and training for local forces, the official said. The drones could hypothetically be used to conduct strikes, the official added, although that would only be for self-defense to protect U.S. or partner forces and would not signal another front in America's drone wars. "It's not necessarily what those (drones) are there for. Those are there for ISR and support," the official said, using an acronym for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

For two decades, Jerry Gonzaga was addicted to drugs. Like many of his neighbors and friends in Parañaque, a city south of Manila, Gonzaga would take shabu, an inexpensive amphetamine, to keep him focused on fixing cars, selling umbrellas, and doing other odd jobs to feed his wife and eight children. Then, on June 30, Rodrigo Duterte assumed the Philippine presidency on promises to kill scores of drug users -- and Gonzaga, a wiry 43-year-old, tried to turn himself in to police. At the station, officers made him sign a form pledging to stay off drugs. "It said, 'If you're caught the first, second and third time, there are warnings and conditions,'" he said.

Abu Sayyaf extremists on Saturday freed a Norwegian man kidnapped a year ago in the southern Philippines with two Canadians who were later beheaded and a Filipino woman who has been released by the ransom-seeking militants, officials said. Kjartan Sekkingstad was freed in Patikul town in Sulu province and was eventually secured by rebels from the larger Moro National Liberation Front, which has signed a peace deal with the government and helped negotiate his release, Philippine government officials said. Sekkingstad, held in jungle captivity since being kidnapped last September, was to stay overnight at the house of Moro National Liberation Front chairman Nur Misuari in Sulu and then be flown to the southern city of Davao on Sunday to meet with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, said Jesus Dureza, who advises Duterte on peace talks with insurgent groups. A plan to fly the freed hostage out of Sulu, a jungle-clad Muslim region about 590 miles south of Manila, on Saturday was scrapped because of bad weather, Dureza said. Dureza said that when he spoke on the phone with Sekkingstad, the Norwegian expressed his gratitude to Duterte.

A former Philippine militiaman testified before a Senate panel on Thursday that President Rodrigo Duterte, when he was mayor of a southern city, ordered him and other members of a liquidation squad to kill criminals and political opponents in gangland-style assaults that left about 1,000 dead. Edgar Matobato, 57, told the nationally televised Senate committee hearing that he heard Duterte order some of the killings and acknowledged that he himself carried out about 50 of the abductions and deadly assaults in Davao, including one in which they fed a man to a crocodile in 2007. The Senate committee inquiry was being led by Sen. Leila de Lima, a staunch critic of Duterte's antidrug campaign that is believed to have killed more than 3,000 suspected drug users and dealers since he assumed the presidency in June. Duterte has accused De Lima of involvement in illegal drugs, alleging that she used to have a driver who took money from detained drug lords. She has denied the allegations.

VIENTIANE – U.S. President Barack Obama and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte shook hands and had a brief chat on Wednesday, officials said, easing a standoff after Duterte called Obama a "son of a bitch" ahead of a summit of Asian leaders in Laos. The presidents of the two longtime allies were due to hold talks on Tuesday but the White House canceled the meeting after Duterte's insult. "I'm very happy that it happened," Philippines' foreign minister, Perfecto Yasay, said of their short meeting. "It all springs from the fact that the relationship between the Philippines and the United States is firm, very strong." Duterte had his outburst on Monday when he was defending his war on drugs that has killed at least 2,400 Filipinos.