Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was returning from Hong Kong to Manila when he was arrested on charges of crimes against humanity.
The true purpose of the trip, while officially a "private vacation", had been to front a political rally for migrant workers.
Along with his daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte, Mr Duterte had sought to whip up support for allied senatorial candidates in the Philippines' high-stakes May 12 midterm elections.
"There is nothing we can do if we get arrested and jailed," Mr Duterte told a crowd of Filipino migrants, who constitute a large proportion of Hong Kong's estimated 400,000 domestic workers.
"When I get out of jail, you can make me a monument."
The comments were prescient. Days later, Mr Duterte would be on his way to The Hague.
He remains in the custody of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of murder as a crime against humanity for presiding over a bloody "war on drugs" — during which rights groups estimate 30,000 people were slain.
The midterms are typically considered an unofficial referendum on the president, in this case Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.
But the fate of Mr Duterte now looms large over the elections, in which Filipinos around the world have been able to vote online for the very first time.
Almost 69 million eligible voters will choose the next 12 members of the Philippines' powerful 24-seat Senate.
Adele Webb, who researches Philippine democracy at the University of Canberra, explained the electorate was polarised.
"Some public sentiment expresses a determination that Duterte, and his co-perpetrators, should stand trial," she said.
"Others, however, find it abhorrent that the 80-year-old grandfather who has served his country should be treated in such a disrespectful way."
The 'significant voice' of Filipinos abroad
Melbourne woman Grace Guinto founded Entree.Pinays to promote the culture and cuisine of Filipinos — who are the fifth-largest migrant community in Australia.
She is thrilled that Filipinos overseas, including her 80-year-old father Anselmo, have an easier way to cast their ballots.
"In the past, the way to have your vote cast was very difficult … this open ballot system will allow people to do it from the comforts of their own home," she said.
"They feel that this is a chance to really have the overseas Filipino voting bloc really heard in the elections."
There are more than 1.2 million Filipinos registered to vote abroad who are no longer required to physically cast their ballot at an embassy or consulate.
At a recent information session about enrolling for online voting, the Melbourne consulate even had a Filipino interpretation of a democracy sausage.
Philippine Commission on Elections data showed this week at least 134,000 had signed up for the new online system to date.
"Human capital is a big export of the Philippines," Ms Guinto said.
"We have an acronym for it: OFW — overseas Filipino workers, because it's recognition of the big global diaspora that Filipinos constitute."
Associate professor Andrea Chloe Wong from Cavite State University in the Philippines agreed.
"Most of the Philippines overseas are educated. They are up to date with what's happening here in the Philippines," she said.
"They have a significant voice because they send money, remittances, to their families."
Lulu Lorenzo was expected to follow her father, a popular Manila councillor, into politics.
Instead she moved to Melbourne in 1985, from where she runs a travel agency.
Her father, Ambrosio "King" Lorenzo Jr, lost his eye and much of his hearing when his opposition Liberal Party rally was bombed in 1971.
The current president's father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr, was still in power at the time.
Ms Lorenzo voted in the midterms in person at the consulate, where she said staff helped her cast her ballot via the new online system.
But she was worried online voting would leave elections open to hacking or vote tampering.
"Until they really secure the system, that there will be no fraud … actually a lot of people in the Philippines are not agreeable to it."
Support for Dutertes remains despite ICC proceedings, impeachment
The proxy war between the Philippines' two most powerful families will play out in the country's midterm polls.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte joined forces at the 2022 election to win a landslide election and become president and vice-president.
Mr Marcos successfully convinced a young electorate that the regime of his namesake father, a dictator and kleptocrat who imposed brutal martial law in the 1970s and 1980s, was in fact a bright period for the Philippines.
But ruptures in the Marcos-Duterte pairing soon became apparent.
Late last year, Ms Duterte admitted to having ordered an assassin to murder Mr Marcos, his wife, and the speaker of the House of Representatives, in the event she herself was killed.
Ms Duterte was impeached by the House of Representatives in February for "violation of the constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and other high crimes".
That month, Mr Duterte joked at a campaign rally that 15 senators should be killed to make way for candidates he was backing.
"The only way to do it is to use a bomb," he said as quoted by the Inquirer newspaper.
Those elected to the Senate on Monday will preside over Ms Duterte's impeachment trial.
If convicted, she would be removed as vice-president and barred from political office for life.
In a submission to the ICC, Mr Duterte's lawyers recently argued that the court did not have jurisdiction to prosecute him because the Philippines was not party to the court's founding treaty, the Rome Statute.
It withdrew from the ICC when Mr Duterte was still president over what he said were the court's "outrageous attacks" against him.
Despite the Philippines no longer being a member of the court, Mr Marcos said that the country was fulfilling its commitment to the international police agency Interpol.
And there are other fault-lines between the Marcos and Duterte clans.
"For the first time in recent memory, there is a clear division between political opponents over foreign policy," Dr Webb said.
"The camp of the president is advocating both a firm stance against China in maritime disputes, and by default, a continued close alliance with the United States," she said.
"By contrast, some of Duterte's supporters, and the vice-president herself, have continued the legacy of the previous president in advocating for a conciliatory approach towards China."
Could overseas Filipinos shake up 'parochial' politics?
The Duterte family retains considerable public support — particularly in their home region of Davao.
Filipino politics remained "parochial" and family-oriented, said Dr Wong from Cavite State University.
"People vote based on personality, based on surnames, based on popularity rather than based on policies and platforms."
Filipino Australians told the ABC they hoped Mr Duterte would be held to account, both at the polls and in The Hague.
Ms Lorenzo said she was shocked that people, including some of her friends, would still be attending Duterte rallies in the Philippines.
"You cannot just kill people," she said.
"Why don't you let him go on trial? If he's not guilty, then it clears his name."
Ms Guinto was confident many overseas Filipino voters would not support Mr Duterte because of "his crimes against humanity".
"There are people outside of the Philippines who are more attuned to what he did," she said.
