Duterte ally flees after chaos at Philippine senate

MANILA, Philippines — For two nights, Ronald dela Rosa was holed up in the Philippine Senate, evading the government agents who were trying to execute an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.

He sought protective custody from his fellow senators. Dressed in a T-shirt, shorts, and slippers, he declared that he was not leaving. He sang a song in front of TV cameras to appeal for support from other alumni of the Philippine Military Academy.

On Wednesday evening, while the Senate was in session, gunfire rang out and plunged the building into chaos. Nobody was hurt, but it was not immediately clear who had fired the shots.

A few hours later, at about 2:30 a.m. Thursday, dela Rosa fled the Senate building in Manila, said Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, who oversees the Philippine police force. He added that dela Rosa had left in a car with another senator, Robin Padilla, and that federal agents were now searching for dela Rosa.

The Philippines has been transfixed for days by the drama surrounding dela Rosa, who was the chief of the national police force under former President Rodrigo Duterte. He is wanted by the ICC for his role in Duterte’s so-called war on drugs, in which tens of thousands of people are believed to have been killed.

On Monday, dela Rosa — widely known by the nickname “Bato,” which is Tagalog for rock — arrived at the Senate, making his first public appearance in months. He had seemed to go into hiding in November amid speculation that the ICC had issued a sealed arrest warrant for him. In March of last year, Philippine authorities executed a warrant issued by the court, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands, for Duterte, who is now awaiting trial on crimes against humanity. Both men deny the charges.

When dela Rosa reached the Senate on Monday, he found agents from the National Bureau of Investigation waiting to arrest him. He fled for safety, dashing up stairs and through doors, stumbling at one point. Inside the Senate chamber and offices, the security forces did not have the authority to arrest him, his allies argued. That evening, the ICC unsealed the warrant.

The chaos surrounding dela Rosa’s arrest is the latest chapter in a bitter, long-running feud between two political dynasties: Duterte’s and that of his successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Dela Rosa came to the Senate as the House of Representatives was preparing to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte, the daughter of Rodrigo Duterte. She and Marcos were once allies but had an acrimonious fallout.

On Monday, dela Rosa slept in the Senate, which is stacked with Duterte allies. He petitioned the Supreme Court to block the ICC warrant.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court said it would give Marcos’ government 72 hours to submit its response to dela Rosa’s petition. After the reports of gunfire at the Senate, Marcos released a video in which he said the government had played no role in the chaos. He said he had ordered law enforcement officers to leave — and that they had — after dela Rosa asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

Remulla said he had yet to receive any order to arrest dela Rosa. He said he believed dela Rosa would return to the Senate when it convenes to vote on whether to convict Sara Duterte. The Senate is next scheduled to meet May 18.

Jean Encinas-Franco, a professor of political science at the University of the Philippines, expressed dismay about the Senate, which she said was so weak that it could not function as an institution of accountability.

“It was so chaotic, it’s crazy,” she said. “It is just worrisome for the past two or three days, they’ve coddled an international fugitive.” She speculated that the gunfire might have been a diversion to cover for dela Rosa’s escape.

Senate President Alan Cayetano told reporters Thursday that dela Rosa had not been served with a warrant, nor had he been arrested by any authority, so his exit was not an “escape.”

This is not the first time a senator has sought refuge from authorities in the Senate. In 2018, Antonio Trillanes, a vocal critic of Duterte’s presidency, was holed up there for weeks before he was arrested.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.