Duterte ally trapped in Philippine Senate vows to avoid ICC arrest
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Ronald dela Rosa vows to fight efforts to haul him to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity.
PHOTO: REUTERS
MANILA – The Philippine senator who emerged from hiding to cast a key vote in the Senate on May 11 has vowed to fight any attempt to execute an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant over his role in the country’s notorious war on drugs.
“We will exhaust all available legal means so we will not be brought to The Hague,” Ronald Dela Rosa told DZBB radio on May 12.
Dela Rosa, popularly known as “Bato”, which means rock in Tagalog, was speaking from the Senate complex, where he won protective custody after being chased through hallways by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
He cannot be arrested by the NBI unless he leaves the building, which is surrounded by dozens of anti-riot police in case of unrest.
Dela Rosa’s appearance on May 11 allowed allies of Vice-President Sara Duterte to wrest control of the Senate and elect a new leader for the chamber.
Shortly after that, lawmakers in the House of Representatives voted to impeach the Vice-President, though she now appears likely to be acquitted in any Senate trial.
Dela Rosa is closely aligned with the Duterte family. He was police chief under the Vice-President’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, who led the nation from 2016 to 2022 and is awaiting trial by the ICC for alleged crimes connected to his crackdown on drugs. Both men deny wrongdoing.
“The Chamber finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe Dela Rosa has committed the crime against humanity of murder,” according to an ICC warrant dated Nov 6, 2025, and made public only on May 11.
Dela Rosa told local DZBB radio on May 12 that he plans to stay in the Senate building and is hoping that the Supreme Court will prevent the ICC arrest warrant from being served.
“We were assaulted in our office,” he said in his first comments at the Senate since November 2025, when reports about the issuance of an ICC arrest warrant first surfaced.
Closed-circuit television caught images of Dela Rosa dashing down hallways and up emergency stairwells to evade arrest by the authorities on May 11, a bizarre sideshow to the impeachment drama playing out between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his archnemesis Sara Duterte.
The Duterte clan is battling to both bring back Rodrigo Duterte from the Hague and to position Ms Duterte as a presidential candidate in 2028, when Mr Marcos must step down after a single six-year term.
About 300 supporters of Dela Rosa and the Duterte family gathered outside the Senate late on May 11, but their numbers had dwindled to around a dozen on May 12.
“I will deal with it if they go through the process,” Dela Rosa said late on May 11, speaking via fellow Senator Robin Padilla’s Facebook account. “If there is a real arrest warrant, they should take it to the local court, they should sort it out, then we can talk about it and deal with it.” BLOOMBERG
