Former Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte left Manila on a jet on Tuesday bound for The Hague, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said, hours after he was arrested at the request of the International Criminal Court over a "war on drugs" that defined his presidency.

Duterte, a firebrand ex-mayor and former prosecutor who led the Philippines from 2016 to 2022, was arrested at a Manila airport early on Tuesday, in a major step in the ICC's investigation into thousands of killings in an anti-drugs crackdown that caused shock and condemnation around the world.

Former President Rodrigo Duterte was detained on Tuesday after the Philippine government said it received an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for his arrest for alleged crimes against humanity.

Duterte has been investigated by the ICC over his brutal anti-drugs crackdown during his time in office that killed more than 6,000 people based on police data, though independent monitors believe the number of extrajudicial killings could be much higher.

Maritime disputes across the vast South China Sea have ratcheted up in recent years as an increasingly assertive China militarizes disputed islands and confronts its regional rivals over their competing claims in the strategically important and resource-rich waterway.

Bracketed by China and several Southeast Asian nations, parts of the vital economic passage are claimed by multiple governments, with Beijing asserting ownership over almost all of the waterway in defiance of an international court ruling.

The White House condemned China on Monday over what the Philippines called an "intentional high-speed ramming" by the Chinese Coast Guard of one of its resupply ships in the South China Sea. One Filipino sailor was seriously wounded in the collision, the Philippine military said.

A Philippine navy sailor suffered "serious injury" after what the country's military called on Tuesday "intentional-high speed ramming" by the Chinese coast guard during a resupply mission in the South China Sea.

The Philippine military said in a statement the Chinese coast guard's "continued aggressive behavior and unprofessional conduct towards a legitimate humanitarian mission is unacceptable."

China and the Philippines have accused each other of being at fault for Monday's collision near a disputed atoll in the South China Sea.

The Philippine military said on Monday that one of its sailors suffered a “serious injury” when a Chinese Coast Guard vessel conducted an “intentional high-speed ramming” attack against a Philippine supply ship in the South China Sea.

The Philippine ship was attempting to deliver supplies to a tiny military outpost on the Second Thomas Shoal, constructed from the hulk of a ship called the BRP Sierra Madre that was deliberately run aground in 1999, when a Chinese coast guard vessel rammed it.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus, an investigation by the Reuters news agency has found.

At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.

The US military carried out secret campaigns to spread anti-vaccine sentiment and counter China's rising global influence.

The covert operation, which has never been previously reported, targeted people living in the Philippines to instill doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied to the island nation by China.