LOYALTY OR LAW? Drilon to Senate: Shielding Bato makes you lawbreakers

By Francis Allan L. Angelo

Former Senate President Franklin Drilon drew a sharp legal line Monday as Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa — who had been in hiding since November 2025 following the issuance of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant — dramatically resurfaced inside the Senate building, apparently banking on the institution’s hallowed halls as his last line of defense against The Hague.

In a blunt televised interview with ABS-CBN’s Headstart, Drilon dismantled what he called the fiction of “protective custody,” dismissed the notion that the Senate could legally shield its own member from an ICC warrant, and issued a stark warning to his former colleagues: if they choose to protect dela Rosa from the law, they will become lawbreakers themselves.

The former Ilonggo Senate leader did not mince words when asked whether dela Rosa could seek refuge in the Senate.

“I raise the issue, I don’t think that there is such a thing as a protective custody,” Drilon said. “If Bato remains in the Senate, then the NBI or the law enforcement may not choose to enforce the warrant out of courtesy to the institution which is the Senate or to Bato as a senator. But protective custody in my humble opinion does not apply in this particular case.”

While he acknowledged that law enforcement agencies do observe a tradition of courtesy toward legislative institutions, he was emphatic that this is not grounded in any statute.

“The continued reason that Bato is not arrested is because of tradition, not because of law,” Drilon said. “If they choose to enforce it, in my humble opinion, they do not violate the law.”

Drilon laid out the only constitutional protection senators enjoy from arrest: they may not be arrested if the offense carries a penalty of six years or less and the Senate is in session at the time. Neither condition applies here.

“Firstly, I must emphasize, there is no law which says that the senator can be protected as exempt from warrant of arrest — except if the crime for which he is charged is a minor offense where the penalty is six years or less, and number two, the Senate is in session,” he said.

Drilon noted that the warrant against dela Rosa originated from the ICC, an international tribunal whose jurisdiction the Philippines had recognized under the Rome Statute before its 2019 withdrawal.

The ICC warrant against dela Rosa stems from his role as the chief enforcer of the Duterte administration’s drug war, which left thousands of Filipinos dead in extrajudicial killings, according to human rights groups.

In one of the interview’s most striking exchanges, Drilon posed a question that stopped the conversation cold: Can dela Rosa simply live inside his Senate office until the next elections in 2028?

The legal answer, he acknowledged, is troubling. The Senate president controls Senate premises, and if he chooses to allow dela Rosa to remain there indefinitely, he has the authority to do so under Senate rules.

“The control over the Senate premises is with the Senate president. That’s under our rules. And therefore, if he allows Bato to stay in the Senate premises for the next two years, the Senate president is empowered to do that under the rules of the Senate,” Drilon said.

But Drilon was clear this would mean the Senate president enabling a fugitive from international justice to remain at large inside the Philippine legislature.

Dela Rosa himself appeared to acknowledge the bind he is in.

In a statement that went viral Monday, the embattled senator pleaded with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.: “Sana ‘wag niya akong ipadala sa The Hague” — I hope he won’t send me to The Hague — a striking admission from a man who once commanded thousands of police officers in a campaign that killed countless Filipinos.

The interview grew even more pointed when the anchor pressed Drilon on an arresting hypothetical: could the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) storm the Senate on a Saturday night and arrest dela Rosa in his sleep?

“Kasi ang ordinaryong Pilipino pag may arrest warrant, pinapasok kahit sa bahay. Kahit tulog ka, ina-aresto ka kung ordinaryo kang Pilipino” — an ordinary Filipino gets arrested even at home, even while asleep. Why should a senator be different?

Drilon’s answer was the same: legally, the NBI can. The Senate president cannot legally ban authorities from enforcing a valid arrest order.

“The protective custody is not in the rules but by tradition. So if the law enforcement chooses to disregard the tradition, as long as it is within the framework of the constitution, then they do not violate the law,” Drilon said.

Drilon concluded with what may be the most consequential question of the entire constitutional crisis: would the newly reorganized Senate — which recently underwent a dramatic leadership coup that swept out allies of Vice President Sara Duterte while the impeachment trial against her proceeds — vote to declare the ICC warrant invalid?

“A motion may be filed. They may choose [to vote] do we recognize it, because we’re not members of the ICC now,” Drilon said.

He noted that even the surrender of former President Rodrigo Duterte to The Hague has been “heavily debated upon in the Senate by several senators.”

If such a vote is called and the Senate votes to reject the ICC warrant, the question would become whether that vote would hold any legal weight — and whether it would expose the institution, and its members, to international censure.

Drilon stopped short of predicting what his colleagues would do. But his warning was unambiguous.

“Now we’re going to see if the Senate will choose to protect their own,” he said. “If the Senate will be lawbreakers instead of lawmakers. If they’ll believe that they’re above the law.”