Chaos in Philippines as Duterte ally wanted by ICC takes refuge in senate to avoid arrest

Former police chief Ronald dela Rosa spends night at senate office after another Duterte ally offers protective custody

The unusual pursuit was captured on CCTV cameras inside the Philippine senate. Ronald dela Rosa, a longtime ally of the former president Rodrigo Duterte, raced along the hallways of the upper house complex, stumbling on the staircase, as he fled government agents.

“They want to forcibly bring me to The Hague, to surrender me there,” Dela Rosa said later on a Facebook livestream, pleading for public support.

He served as police chief under Duterte and is named as a co-perpetrator in a case at the international criminal court (ICC) accusing the former leader of crimes against humanity over his anti-drugs crackdowns, in which thousands of people were killed. The ICC confirmed on Monday night it had issued an arrest warrant for Dela Rosa.

By evening, barbed wire and riot police surrounded the senate compound. The national union of journalists in the Philippines issued a statement calling for calm, saying media workers had been blocked from leaving or entering the complex.

Dela Rosa slept at the senate office overnight after its new president, Alan Peter Cayetano, another Duterte ally, announced it was offering protective custody. Dela Rosa has previously denied any wrongdoing.

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The chaos, which coincided with a vote by the lower house to impeach the vice-president, Sara Duterte, the former president’s daughter, capped off a dramatic day in Philippine politics and marked the latest chapter in a bitter power struggle between Sara Duterte and the president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The two leaders were once allies who ran on a joint campaign in the 2022 election. Relations quickly soured, however, and they are now embroiled in a fierce feud that intensified last year when Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in Manila and flown to the ICC in The Hague.

The court’s arrest warrant for Dela Rosa had been issued confidentially in November. Unconfirmed reports of his looming arrest had been circulating ever since, prompting Dela Rosa to stay away from the senate for months. He chose to attend a hearing on Monday, however, when senators elected Cayetano as its president. Cayetano said the senate would allow an arrest only “under the condition that it is a Philippine court”.

Cayetano’s appointment underlines the Dutertes’ stronger position in the senate, which is crucial for the vice-president’s survival after Monday’s impeachment vote.

The complaints against her – of misusing public funds, amassing unexplained wealth and threatening the lives of the president and first lady – will be passed to the senate for trial. If found guilty, Duterte will be banned from public office, derailing her plan to run for president in 2028.

She will need only nine senators to back her in order to be acquitted. Analysts say much will depend on not only the outcome of any impeachment trial but also how damaging such hearings are to her campaign.

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Jean Encinas-Franco, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman, said: “If [the Dutertes] have the majority [in the senate] then they can actually allow or not allow some pieces of evidence to appear in that trial. They can allow or not allow some witnesses to be included.”

Sara Duterte has led several opinion polls despite the legal battles and allegations surrounding her and her father. They both have denied any wrongdoing.

Families whose relatives were killed during the anti-drug killings have called for Dela Rosa to be handed over to the ICC. He was pictured in local media on Tuesday emerging from a fellow senator’s office dressed in shorts and T-shirt. It is unclear how long he will remain there or what will happen when he emerges.

Llore Pasco, whose two sons were killed at the height of the crackdowns, said: “He played a major role in carrying out Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.” Like Duterte, she said, Dela Rosa “deserves to be jailed and held accountable”.

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