March 10 (UPI) -- Former President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines was arrested Tuesday morning in Manila on an International Criminal Court warrant for crimes against humanity over his bloody war on drugs. He was arrested at 9:20 a.m. local time after arriving in Manila from Hong Kong aboard Cathay Pacific flight CX 907, the Philippine government said in a statement. "The former President and his group are in good health and were examined by government doctors to ensure his well-being," the statement said. Veronica Duterte, the former president's daughter, was among his party at the time of the arrest and used her Instagram account to protest her father's detention. "Illegal detention. No warrant of arrest," she wrote in an Instagram story. In another post, Duterte, speaking in English, protested the legality of his detention. "Show it to me now the legal basis for my being here. Apparently, I was brought here not by my own volition. It's somebody else's," he said. "So you need to answer now for the deprivation of liberty." "What is the law and what is the crime that I committed," he continued. Duterte's campaign to eradicate drugs in the Philippines began shortly after he took office in June 2016 and resulted in the deaths of between 12,000 and 30,000 Filipinos. The ICC had launched a preliminary examination into the Philippines' war on drugs in February 2018, which prompted the Duetre regime to rescind its membership to the international court, which took effect in March the next year. However, in September 2021, the ICC then launched a formal investigation into crimes against humanity, specifically murder, in the Philippines . In announcing the grounds for the investigation, the ICC said it had discovered allegations dating as far back as Nov. 1, 2011, when Duterte was mayor of Davao City. The probe investigated allegations from Nov. 1, 2011, to March 16, 2019, when the Philippines officially left the Hague-based criminal court. The Duterte government had argued that the court no longer had jurisdiction over the Philippines because it was no longer a member -- an argument the ICC refuted, stating it could investigate crimes committed while the country was part of the court. In January 2023, an ICC appeals court permitted the resumption of its investigation, which was suspended in November 2021 after Manila had requested a deferral to conduct its own review. Duterte left office in 2022 and has largely avoided accountability for his bloody war on drugs. Leila de Lima, a lawyer, former senator and prominent Duterte critic, was jailed for nearly seven years during the Duterte regime for crimes she said were fabricated in retaliation for heroutspoke opposition. She was only released in November 2023. In a statement Tuesday, she said his arrest was "deeply personal." "While I was behind bars, thousands of Filipinos were killed without justice, their families left to grieve with no answers, no accountability," she said. "Today, Duterte is being made to answer -- not to me, but to the victims, to their families, to a world that refuses to forget. This is not about vengeance. This is about justice finally taking its course. "To those who have fought this long and difficult fight -- your voices mattered, your courage mattered and today, the pursuit of justice continues." Kristina Conti, a Filipino lawyer and activist who has been working with the ICC on its probe, issued a statement Tuesday on behalf of several families of the victims of Duterte's war on drugs. "We demand that Duterte feel even a fraction of the pain he inflicted upon our families. He destroyed our lives and livelihoods through his policies. He had no right to take the lives of others -- only God has that right. Because of what he did, the people will seek justice, especially we, the families of the victims," the statement said. "The people will hold him accountable!"