Philippine Senate standoff amid ICC arrest warrant on Duterte ally

By Diana G. Mendoza

Manila– President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. appealed for calm as Filipinos tried to make sense of the gunfire on the night of May 13 in the Senate building where a senator holed up to avoid arrest by an international court.

Marcos ordered an investigation into the chaos, which reflected a play of politics and staged maneuvers by the self-installed Senate majority of 13 senators who shielded Sen. Ronald dela Rosa.

Wanted by the International Criminal Court, Dela Rosa reportedly escaped overnight.

“I appeal to everyone to stay calm. I promise that we will get to the bottom of this,” Marcos Jr. said in a televised statement, assuring citizens that his government was not behind the shooting.

Dela Rosa, nicknamed “Bato” or “rock,” was the national police chief and a longtime loyal ally of former president Rodrigo Duterte, both from Davao, and the top enforcer of the ex-president’s brutal “war on drugs” that killed thousands of suspected users and peddlers from 2016 to 2022.

The fugitive senator has been under Senate protection since May 11 when he resurfaced after six months of absence for dodging arrest by the ICC, which made public a few days ago an arrest warrant for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is facing in the ICC.

Duterte was arrested in March 2025 and detained at The Hague and will face trial this year.

The ICC’s warrant, dated November 2025 and unsealed May 11, names Dela Rosa as a co-perpetrator of crimes against humanity committed in the Philippines between 2011 and 2019 when he was a police official and leader of the death squads from Davao.

The warrant does not require a counterpart domestic warrant to be enforceable, but the senator filed an emergency appeal at the Philippines Supreme Court, arguing the ICC has no jurisdiction in the Philippines after its 2019 withdrawal from the body.

Prior to the gunshots heard worldwide, Dela Rosa was captured in videos running through the Senate stairwells and halls as he tried to elude arrest by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation.

His sudden emergence was believed to be part of a strategy to establish a Senate majority, unseat the chamber's president and dismiss the impeachment charges against Vice President Sara Duterte, daughter of ex-president Duterte.

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On that same day, the House of Representatives voted to impeach Sara on several charges including graft and corruption, bribery, unexplained wealth, misusing public funds and plotting to assassinate Marcos Jr.

If convicted, Sara Duterte would be removed from office and disqualified from running for president, as she has planned expressed, in 2028.

Currently in The Hague visiting her father, Sara Duterte accused the administration of "using all government resources to demolish political opposition."

Analysts suggest that the turmoil in the Senate, seen as the first significant challenge to Marcos Jr.'s presidency, will test the political resilience of the Duterte clan.

Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte ran and won under one banner in 2022 before they had a political fallout.

Amid the political tension, Filipino lawyer Kristina Conti said Dela Rosa “has the power now to mollify or end the dangerous situation at the Senate. He has the power to save us all from further chaos and indignity.”

Conti, ICC assistant to counsel, said Dela Rosa is “considered a suspect-at-large by the ICC” as she appealed to the fugitive senator to surrender and cooperate with Philippine authorities, “in a show of honor, sacrifice, and genuine statesmanship.”

“His actions these past days can be characterized as belligerent, embarrassingly desperate, comically tragic, and clearly for his personal gain. Enough.”

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