‘STONE-WALLED’: Dela Rosa hides in Senate as ICC unseals warrant

By Joseph Bernard A. Marzan

Out of hiding, and in hiding again.

Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who resurfaced in the Senate on Monday, May 11, after six months of non-appearance, is now under protection of the chamber’s new leadership, as the International Criminal Court (ICC) confirmed that it did issue a warrant for his arrest.

Tensions ran high at the Senate building in Pasay City on Monday evening, as former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV appeared with men from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), showing media a purported copy of the ICC’s warrant of arrest against dela Rosa.

The Senate, which had its first session shortly after Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano led a surprise vote and became Senate President, went on lockdown.

Later, footage showing dela Rosa being chased by NBI agents surfaced online, and during the session, Sen. Rodante Marcoleta moved that the senator be placed under the chamber’s protective custody.

On Monday evening (Philippine time), the ICC, through its spokesperson Oriane Maillet, confirmed that there was a warrant of arrest for dela Rosa, originally issued as secret on Nov. 6, 2025, and ordered by Pre-Trial Chamber I to be unsealed.

Pre-Trial Chamber I, presided over by Judge Iulia Antoanella Motoc, was the same ICC chamber that issued a warrant last year and recently confirmed the charges against former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Maillet said the senator had been involved in a common plan that lasted throughout the Philippines’ membership in the ICC (Nov. 1, 2011 to March 16, 2019) “to kill alleged criminals in the Philippines, including those perceived or alleged to be associated with drug use, sale, or production.”

Her statement also cited his various positions in the Philippine National Police (PNP) during this time, including in the Davao Region and as PNP chief until his retirement in 2018, and as director general of the Bureau of Corrections.

“Dela Rosa is alleged to have committed the crime against humanity of murder, at least between the 3rd of July 2016, and the end of April 2018, during which, no less than 32 persons were killed in the Republic of the Philippines,” Maillet said in a video.

“The judges assessed the materials submitted by the prosecution and found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Dela Rosa is allegedly criminally responsible as a co-perpetrator for the crime against humanity of murder,” she added.

Even before the ICC confirmed the existence of a warrant, the senator’s camp filed twice with the Supreme Court on Monday — a Very Urgent Manifestation With Omnibus Motion on early Monday afternoon, and an Extremely Urgent Supplemental Manifestation With Motion after Trillanes’ and the NBI’s presence at the Senate building.

Both filings sought the Supreme Court’s intervention against the enforcement of the ICC warrant.

Cayetano told the media that the Senate will only entertain warrants issued by domestic courts.

“Our Constitution says that it has to be a Philippine judge issuing a warrant of arrest. So if they come here with a warrant of arrest and a Philippine judge to entertain that, we will allow [dela Rosa] to exhaust all legal remedies, and usually the senator is the one who surrenders if they have already exhausted all of their legal remedies,” Cayetano told ABS-CBN on Monday evening.

During the Senate’s plenary on Tuesday, newly ousted former Senate President Tito Sotto clarified that while the NBI had indeed approached his office on the warrant against dela Rosa on Monday morning, he referred the agent to the Office of the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms (OSAA).

Sotto also emphasized that while he acknowledged the existence of the warrant, he did not know that dela Rosa would even show up at the Senate.

“Early in the morning [on Monday], an NBI representative came to see me, and told me they have a warrant of arrest for [dela Rosa]. I said, simply, ‘Coordinate with OSAA.’ As simple as that,” Sotto narrated.

“I didn’t realize that [dela Rosa] was coming. I didn’t realize that he was going to be there in the afternoon. I thought it was just a simple information given [to] the Senate President, that a member of the Senate was being issued a warrant of arrest. Little did I know that Senator Dela Rosa, after seven months of not being here, will suddenly come,” he added.

Won’t surrender

Dela Rosa was then spotted on Tuesday, May 12, in the Senate halls wearing casual clothes, after which it was revealed that he had spent the night in Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s office.

Later, facing the media, the embattled senator reiterated the Duterte camp’s line on the ICC’s arrests — that they would only entertain warrants from Philippine courts.

Citing Article I of the Rome Statute, which created and governs the ICC, the lawmaker said the country had a perfectly functioning justice system, and that the international tribunal was only complementary.

The provision he cited refers to the international legal principle of complementarity, wherein the ICC “shall be complementary to national criminal jurisdictions.”

“You’re a Filipino. You have existing Filipino courts. Why would you have yourself tried by foreigners? This is an attack on our sovereignty,” dela Rosa told the media on Tuesday morning.

“There’s no need for complementarity here because our justice system is alive,” he added.

The senator also accused former House Speaker Martin Romualdez of being behind the ICC case against him and the Dutertes.

“That greedy Martin Romualdez, who wants to be the President of the Philippines, he was the one who coordinated this, to bring down the Dutertes. If this wasn’t about politics, why don’t they charge me in our local courts? They want us to vanish from Philippine soil, that’s why they filed there,” he said.

He also called out President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.: “[Marcos Jr.] should be thinking, that the day would come that he would also be put in my situation, in [former] president Duterte’s situation. […] I hope he doesn’t send me to The Hague,” referring to the ICC’s location in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro asserted that while the government does not recognize the ICC’s authority, it does have an obligation to the families of the victims of the Duterte administration’s drug war.

“The ones who filed a case with the ICC are fellow Filipinos. We have obligations to the Interpol, and we also have the obligation that all who must be held accountable, must be held accountable. We also have to protect those who were victims of [extra-judicial killings],” Castro said during Malacañang Palace’s regular press conference on Tuesday.

Dela Rosa can be arrested

Lawyer, political analyst, and Daily Guardian columnist Michael Henry Yusingco said on Tuesday that there was no legal impediment for local authorities to arrest dela Rosa.

Yusingco pointed out that the parliamentary immunity granted under the Constitution was limited to utterances on the House floor and to offenses under Philippine law where the punishment was below six years.

He cited the arrests of former Sens. Trillanes and Leila de Lima during their terms, which were also enforced while the chamber was in session.

Both senators, who were then vocal critics of the Duterte administration, were charged by local courts with rebellion and drug charges, respectively.

“It’s not applicable here, so there is no reason to stop the arrest of a senator, even inside the halls of the Senate, and even while the Senate is in session. That’s what happened to [de Lima] and [Trillanes] before, so there is precedent that a senator can be arrested if there is no parliamentary immunity involved,” Yusingco said in an interview.

Yusingco also said Cayetano might be seen as obstructing justice, given that he had been interfering with a warrant in a case where he was not involved.

“The arrest is against [dela Rosa], so only [dela Rosa] can deny the authority behind the warrant of arrest, only he can say, ‘I will go to the courts, and I will seek all the remedies that I can.’ The Senate has no personality [in this case], because there is no parliamentary immunity [involved],” he said.

“They [the Senate] cannot deny anything. They cannot deny anyone. The Senate is a public space. If there is someone making a mess, obviously they have to address that. But that’s a different conversation to be had,” he added.

What’s in the warrant?

The Pre-Trial Chamber I warrant, uploaded to the ICC website on Tuesday morning (Philippine time), said there were reasonable grounds to believe that dela Rosa was individually responsible as a co-perpetrator under Article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute.

The warrant was grounded on dela Rosa’s alleged involvement in a so-called “common plan” with other high-ranking officials to “neutralize,” or kill, alleged criminals, particularly those connected to drug trade, use, and possession, among others.

It noted that the plan was first implemented through the notorious Davao Death Squad, and was later rolled out as nationwide policy when Duterte assumed the presidency.

Several actions were cited, including the implementation of “Tokhang,” promulgation of killings intertwined with lawful orders, logistical support, public statements allegedly supporting and promoting the killings, strategic assignments of officers, and fictitious self-defense scenarios or the “nanlaban” (fighting back) narrative.

“The Chamber finds that, due to Mr Dela Rosa’s role and positions held during the time of the alleged attack pursuant to article 7(1) of the [Rome] Statute, including as chief of the Davao Police and subsequently as chief of the Philippine National Police (the ‘PNP’), he necessarily knew about the operations and their scope,” Pre-Trial Chamber I said in the warrant.

“Indeed, the material before the Chamber shows that his contributions to the common plan furthered the widespread and systematic attack directed against all persons designated as involved in criminal activities, especially drug-related ones, and, based on his own public statements, that he intended his actions to be part of the alleged attack against the civilian population,” it added.

The Chamber cited two factors in determining the necessity of dela Rosa’s arrest: ensuring his appearance, noting that he would not voluntarily cooperate with the ICC; and preventing interference, based on previous statements threatening an ICC prosecutor and fueling disinformation.