Philippine police probe whether Senate gunfire helped Bato dela Rosa flee

Gunshots inside the heavily guarded Philippine Senate triggered a police probe into whether the chaos was staged to help Ronald dela Rosa flee after the International Criminal Court unsealed an arrest warrant against him.

Dela Rosa, 64, the former Philippine national police chief under Rodrigo Duterte, had been taking refuge under Senate protection since Monday, May 11, after the ICC made public a warrant that had been issued confidentially on November 6, 2025. The court charges him with murder as a crime against humanity, alleging no fewer than 32 killings between July 2016 and April 2018, when he led the national police force under Duterte’s anti-drug campaign.

The rupture inside the Senate came on Wednesday night, when gunshots rang out after an argument involving a government agent and security personnel. Police later recovered bullet casings and assault rifle magazines, and detained one person who had provided names now being verified. The National Bureau of Investigation said the possibility that the incident was staged was part of the inquiry, deepening suspicions that the confrontation created cover for dela Rosa to get out of the building.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. urged the public to remain calm in a late-night television statement as the episode escalated into a test of how far Philippine institutions are willing to cooperate with international justice. Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano said there was "no obstruction of justice," argued he had not seen an ICC warrant, and said the senator was free to leave the premises. Cayetano also read a text message from Nancy dela Rosa saying Ronald had made his "escape" and that fleeing "was not part of the plan."

The political stakes extend far beyond one senator’s flight. Dela Rosa has filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court of the Philippines arguing that the ICC has no jurisdiction after the Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute in 2019. His case lands in the middle of a widening confrontation between the Marcos and Duterte camps, after Vice President Sara Duterte accused Marcos of the "kidnapping" of her father and handover to a foreign court. Sara Duterte was impeached by the House on Monday over alleged unexplained wealth, misuse of state funds, and a public threat to have Marcos, his wife and the House speaker assassinated if she were killed.

Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in March 2025 on an ICC warrant and is now facing trial in The Hague. Dela Rosa has denied authorizing extrajudicial killings, but the Senate episode has sharpened the question of whether elite power in the Philippines still shields the powerful from accountability, even as international prosecutors press their case.