Operation Pursuit: Inside the high-stakes arrest of Rodrigo Duterte

The visit had been advertised for weeks. Former president Rodrigo Duterte was going to a rally in Hong Kong during the second weekend in March.

- SUI-LEE WEE and CAMILLE ELEMIA

But as soon as it began, the trip took on a tantalizing element of intrigue: Was he ever coming back? To many Filipinos, it appeared that Duterte was trying to outrun justice. The International Criminal Court, a sudden swirl of speculation in the Philippines posited, was about to seek his arrest, years after it started investigating the deadly anti-drug campaign he had overseen as president and as mayor of Davao. By being in Hong Kong, the theory went, Duterte would remain free because China is not a member of the court.

Soon after Duterte, 79, landed in Hong Kong on March 7, the ICC issued a sealed warrant for him. But wind of the move reached him.

Over that weekend in Hong Kong, his entourage-which included his partner, Honeylet Avanceña, and daughter Sara Duterte, the current vice president - debated whether to stay in Chinese territory or return home, according to two Philippine officials and a former lawmaker who spoke on the record and cited Philippines intelligence.

Salvador Panelo, his lawyer, disputed that account, saying Duterte had not even discussed seeking asylum in China. "Why would Duterte escape?" he said. "At his age, he no longer cares about what is going to happen to him." In public, Duterte stuck to his usual bluster. At the rally that Sunday, he told a throng of mostly Filipino women that if being arrested by the ICC was his fate in life, he would accept it. His allies made pronouncements that he would be back in the Philippines that Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.