appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Raissa Robles

The Philippine Senate has witnessed political coups, scandals and the occasional shouting match.
It had never, until this week, seen a sitting senator sprint down its corridors in a muddy olive shirt, knocking aside female investigators like bowling pins, to avoid an international arrest warrant for crimes against humanity.
That was Monday. By Wednesday night, gunshots were ringing out in the building that houses the upper chamber of the country’s Congress.
“I worked in the Senate for 15 years and I have never seen anything like this,” said Dr Jean Franco, a political-science professor at the University of the Philippines. She was not alone in that assessment.

At the centre of the turmoil was Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, a former national police chief who helped oversee ex-president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs, and a man who once dismissed the deaths of children in that bloody campaign as “collateral damage”.
A warrant unsealed on Monday by the International Criminal Court charges Dela Rosa with the crime against humanity of murder of “no less than 32 persons” between July 2016 and the end of April 2018, when he led the national police force under Duterte.
Duterte, who was president from 2016 to 2022, was arrested in March last year on an ICC warrant in connection with his deadly anti-drugs crackdowns, for which he is now facing a trial in The Hague. At least 6,200 Filipino suspects were killed during that time.
ICC fugitive
For nearly six months, Dela Rosa had not reported for duty in the Senate, his long absence linked to the ICC warrant that was issued under seal in November last year.
Then on Monday, he suddenly materialised. Not to face the warrant, but to cast the decisive 13th vote in a surprise political coup that ousted Vicente Sotto III as Senate president and installed close Duterte ally Alan Peter Cayetano in his place.

But the National Bureau of Investigation was waiting, and when its agents moved to serve the ICC warrant, the former police chief bolted. Senate CCTV cameras captured every ungainly stride as the stocky Dela Rosa, 64, stumbled on the stairs, shoved past investigators and outran women half his size in the halls of the nation’s upper chamber.
The footage quickly went viral, drawing comparisons to slapstick comedy routines like the Keystone Cops and Benny Hill.
For two days, Dela Rosa holed up in the Senate building. Months earlier he had boasted he was ready to join Duterte in detention in The Hague. By Wednesday, he was seen on camera wiping away tears from his eyes, after the ICC formally declared him a wanted fugitive “at large”.
“Call me a coward”, the visibly distraught senator told the assembled reporters, “but I’m not stupid”. He appealed directly to his former Philippine Military Academy classmates still in uniform, then begged President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr to allow him to face trial in a local court rather than be surrendered to The Hague.
That evening, he was spotted emerging from a lift flanked by security, trailed closely by a bald man in an almost identical shirt who bore a striking resemblance to the senator himself.


Gunfire erupted inside the Senate later that same night, mainly fired by the building’s security personnel during an altercation with an armed government agent, police said. A Senate insider counted at least 37 bullet holes in the walls of the second floor, where media and Senate staff had been milling around in the corridors.
Miraculously, no one was injured, but Dela Rosa did slip out in the ensuing chaos. Cayetano, the newly installed Senate president, later told a news briefing that he had not seen any ICC warrant of arrest against the senator and that he was free to leave the premises.
“There is no obstruction of justice,” Cayetano said of Dela Rosa’s escape while supposedly in the Senate’s protective custody.
Impeachment derailed?
Political analysts said the week’s events had pushed the Senate – once regarded as the more sober, deliberative chamber – to its lowest point in living memory.
“Any remaining vestige of Senate credibility flew out the window with that video of Senator Dela Rosa running away from NBI agents in the halls of the Senate itself,” said Barry Gutierrez, a former congressman and criminal law professor at the University of the Philippines, on Thursday.
“Last night’s fiasco – shots being fired in the Senate, apparently by their own security personnel – officially crowns this particular Senate as the worst in history.”
Gutierrez argued that the institution’s decline predated the week’s farce. He said the Senate had been steadily hollowed out by brazen partisanship and the abuse of senatorial privilege, of which Dela Rosa’s dramatic reappearance to cast Monday’s deciding vote was perhaps the most egregious example.
Cayetano’s ascent as Senate president also carries consequences for the impeachment of Duterte’s daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio.

Romulo Macalintal, a private lawyer, warned that the new pro-Duterte majority could now move to declare the House’s recent impeachment of Duterte-Carpio procedurally defective, effectively killing the Senate trial before it starts.
The articles of impeachment against the vice-president arrived at the Senate on Wednesday night. Delivered into the middle of the gunfire and chaos, their historical weight was all but drowned out by the pandemonium.
Franco, the political scientist, described the Senate’s months-long indulgence of Dela Rosa as “a manifestation of polarisation and how it is used by politicians to escape accountability”.
“The Senate has become a coddler of politicians trying to escape from the law,” she added.
Gutierrez put the week’s events in a historical context. He said senators had faced warrants and criminal charges previously, but in the 39 years since the Senate was reconstituted following Ferdinand Marcos Snr’s dictatorship, most had surrendered and fought their cases in court.
“This is the first time it has devolved to this,” he said. “The Senate being used to actively harbour a fugitive from justice.”
The new Senate leadership showed few signs of contrition. Pro-Duterte Senator Rodante Marcoleta introduced a resolution during Wednesday’s session allowing absent senators to vote by videoconference: a procedural workaround that would let Dela Rosa take part in key votes from wherever he has gone to ground.
Additional reporting by Associated Press


Western powers ramp up support for Philippines’ Luzon economic hub

Gunfire, farce and fugitive Philippine Senator Bato dela Rosa

‘I got really scared’: how the Philippine Senate shoot-out unfolded

Canada pushes to finalise Asean trade deal to cut US reliance

The Philippines

A protester holds a placard of Philippine Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa during a rally calling for his arrest outside the Senate on Wednesday. Photo: EPA

Armed Swat team members board a vehicle en route to the Philippine Senate on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa stumbles on the stairs as he runs from law enforcement agents inside the Senate building in Manila on Monday, in this still image taken from a video of CCTV footage. Photo: Reuters

Philippines Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano gestures while talking to the media at the Senate on Thursday. Photo: EPA

Philippine Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the chief enforcer of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, takes a phone call during a session at the Senate on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

A hallway at the Philippine Senate in Pasay City, Metro Manila, displays images of incumbent legislators, including Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa (top left). Photo: EPA

Dela Rosa’s flight turns Philippine Senate into battleground for ICC accountability

Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa shows his bandaged fingers during a session at the Senate in Metro Manila on Tuesday, a day after he evaded an ICC arrest warrant. Photo: EPA

Riot police (front) block supporters of former president Rodrigo Duterte and Senator Ronald dela Rosa in front of the Senate gate in Manila on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

Philippine Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano (second from left) with Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa at the Senate in Metro Manila on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters

Lawmakers vote on the impeachment of Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio at the House of Representatives on Monday. Photo: Xinhua

ICC fugitive? Duterte ally’s paid Philippine Senate vanishing act draws fire

Philippine former national police chief and now Senator Ronald Dela Rosa tries a semi-automatic rifle during a defence and sporting show in Pasay City in 2023. Photo: AFP

Then Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte talks to then Philippine National Police chief Ronald Dela Rosa at a press conference in Manila in 2017. Photo: AFP

Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency officers handcuff a man suspected of involvement in illegal drugs during a raid in Pasig City in 2017. Photo: EPA

Then Philippine National Police chief Ronald Dela Rosa testifies during a Senate hearing in Pasay in 2017. Photo: Reuters

This Week in Asia

Politics

News

Asia

Southeast Asia

‘Call me a coward’, ICC fugitive Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa told the cameras, as he holed up in the Senate in a bid to escape justice


‘Call me a coward’, ICC fugitive Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa told the cameras, as he holed up in the Senate in a bid to escape justice.


Gunfire, farce and fugitive Philippine Senator Bato dela Rosa

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}‘Call me a coward’, ICC fugitive Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa told the cameras, as he holed up in the Senate in a bid to escape justice

‘Call me a coward’, ICC fugitive Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa told the cameras, as he holed up in the Senate in a bid to escape justice