Philippine senator seeks military support to block ICC arrest over Duterte drug war
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Philippine senator Ronald dela Rosa is accused of the crime against humanity of murder.
PHOTO: EPA
MANILA - Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer urged the military on May 13 to stop government attempts to arrest and fly him to the Netherlands to stand trial on charges of crimes against humanity.
Ronald Dela Rosa, a sitting senator and former police chief, began his third day holed up at the Senate building after its leadership stopped government efforts to serve an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court over his role in Duterte’s bloody drug war.
Dela Rosa, better known by his nickname “Bato”, is accused of the crime against humanity of murder along with Duterte and other co-perpetrators.
“I am not appealing for violent support. I am appealing for peaceful support,” Dela Rosa told reporters.
He urged “my fellow men in uniform” and former classmates at the Philippine Military Academy, which produces most of the armed forces’ officer corps, to “express their sentiment” that President Ferdinand Marcos’s government “should not hand me over to foreigners”.
Outside the Senate on May 13, about 500 riot police faced off with some 250 protesters demanding the arrest and handover to the ICC of a person they described as the “architect” of Duterte’s drug war.
The crackdown left thousands dead, human rights monitors say, many of them drug users and low-level narcotics peddlers.
Dela Rosa was police chief in 2016 to 2018, during Duterte’s first two years in office.
Duterte was arrested in March 2025, flown to the Netherlands on the same day, and is detained in the Hague where he awaits trial.
The senator had not been seen publicly since November before emerging on May 11 to take part in an unexpected vote that helped Duterte loyalists capture control of the Senate.
The new senate leadership said it would only allow Dela Rosa’s arrest if it was ordered by a Philippine court.
A Marcos spokeswoman said on May 12 the president would “not interfere in the decisions of the Senate”.
The Supreme Court has yet to act on a Dela Rosa petition to stop the Manila government from enforcing the ICC arrest warrant. AFP
