The wanted man outran security agents, rallied protesters and even serenaded the media with a military hymn. Then, after a sudden exchange of gunfire, the Philippines’ most controversial lawmaker slipped out of the heavily guarded senate building in the middle of the night.
Senator Ronald dela Rosa, who is wanted by the international criminal court for crimes against humanity, is now nowhere to be seen.
The week’s shambolic events have not only prompted criticism of the country’s senate, where Duterte’s allies controversially shielded Dela Rosa from arrest, but also of the president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who appears outmanoeuvred.
Dela Rosa is wanted by the international criminal court for his role as the enforcer of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs”, in which thousands of people were killed. But the saga over his arrest is also underlined by a fierce power struggle between Marcos and Duterte’s daughter, the vice-president, Sara Duterte. They once campaigned together but relations quickly soured, reaching an all-time low last year when Marcos allowed her father to be arrested and transferred to the ICC. The 81-year-old leader is now imprisoned at The Hague, facing charges of crimes against humanity.
Both Marcos and Dela Rosa deny wrongdoing.
Dela Rosa, a tough-talking former head of the Philippine national police, had been in hiding for months after reports emerged of his looming arrest in November. He made a surprise appearance at the senate on Monday, turning up to back a successful bid by another staunch Duterte ally to become senate president.
It proved a risky move for Dela Rosa, who found himself theatrically racing through hallways and clambering up senate stairways when security agents chased him through the building. He outran the agents, however. Along with his allies he has, perhaps, outmanoeuvred Marcos politically, too. When Dela Rosa reached the senate chamber he was granted protective custody by the new senate president, Alan Peter Cayetano.
The concept of senate protection is deemed dubious by some experts, but paved the way for a three-day standoff with the authorities.
For the first night, he hunkered down at the office of fellow senator Jinggoy Estrada, he told Super Radyo DZBB. “His room was better, it also has more food,” said Dela Rosa, who is known by the nickname Bato, which translates as “rock”. He admitted he did not have much of an appetite, however.
Inside the senate, he kept himself busy – drumming up public support through Facebook live streams and media interviews.
He called on his “fellow men in uniform” to oppose his arrest, bellowing out the military hymn to awaiting media in front of a media scrum, and made an appeal to Marcos not to hand him over to the ICC, with tears in his eyes.
His announcement on Wednesday night that he faced imminent arrest led to a heavy security presence and protesters outside the senate. Inside the building, the media captured scenes of chaos as they tried to locate the senator. Some reporters gathered at a doorway, holding their mics up to the door to capture the sound of drilling, as passageways were apparently being sealed.
Then, gunshots were fired, forcing reporters to scramble for cover.
Dela Rosa fled hours later. GMA News reported he had told bodyguards he was nipping to the toilet, but instead fled through a fire exit and cruised off in an SUV with a fellow Duterte-aligned senator.
Some have questioned if the shooting and commotion were staged to allow Dela Rosa an escape. Cayetano has denied this. He claimed the senate was “under attack”, blaming the national bureau of investigations, which had originally tried to arrest Dela Rosa on Monday. However, it later emerged senate security fired first.
“I myself do not know what to make of it,” said the senator Vicente Sotto, who was ousted as senate president and replaced by Cayetano on Monday. “Some firearms shooting by the [senate security] at I don’t know what, when most of us should have been home. Then Bato escapes,” he said.
The Marcos government has said it will respect a supreme court decision on Wednesday, which gave the government 72 hours to comment on a petition filed by Dela Rosa challenging his arrest.
“I sense that Marcos Jr wants to be more careful at this point compared to when Duterte was arrested,” said Jean Encinas-Franco, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman. When Duterte was arrested, Marcos’s “approval and trust ratings suffered”, she said. He doesn’t want to risk the same happening again.
“However, what is coming out is that the government is weak and incompetent, given the bungled attempts to arrest Bato,” she added.
In contrast, Sara Duterte is performing well in surveys. Her allies’ grip on the senate has been tightened this week with Cayetano’s appointment – a helpful development given that she faces a looming impeachment trial.
Dela Rosa will no doubt be keeping an eye on its proceedings. He is relatively young and may not be able to elude justice for ever, said Sol Iglesias, an associate professor of political science at the University of the Philippines.
“However, if Sara Duterte is not convicted and wins the presidency in 2028, he can expect to be shielded for as long as his allies remain in power,” she added.
For now, his whereabouts remain a mystery.
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