The contrast was not lost on former senator Antonio Trillanes IV: the same official who once boasted of deploying 10,000 police officers in anticipation of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa is now the one arguing that the warrant cannot be served.
“Nung may mga ganoong ugong-ugong, nagmamalaki siya na may 10,000 pulis na nagbabantay daw,” Trillanes said, referring to Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla’s earlier announcement of a standby task force. “Ngayon na mayroon nang warrant at lumabas si Bato, sinasabi naman na hindi raw puwedeng i-enforce ang warrant na iyon. Kanino ba talaga kakampi ang taong ito?”
The ICC confirmed on Monday that the warrant against Dela Rosa — issued under seal by Pre-Trial Chamber I on November 6, 2025 — is a formal ICC document. The chamber found reasonable grounds to believe that Dela Rosa bears criminal responsibility as an indirect co-perpetrator for the crime against humanity of murder, covering at least 32 killings between July 3, 2016, and the end of April 2018.
Remulla, for his part, has maintained that the document in Trillanes’ possession amounts to little more than an unactionable correspondence. “The warrant that Senator Trillanes holds is a correspondence by the ICC to the PCTC (Philippine Center on Transnational Crime). However, we are not part of the treaty. We are affording Senator Dela Rosa due process by waiting for the Interpol to serve notice to the PCTC. As far as the DILG [is concerned], what Senator Trillanes has is an inactionable document,” Remulla told reporters.
The Philippine National Police echoed that position, saying it would only implement the warrant after it had been processed through Interpol, the National Central Bureau in Manila, or the Philippine Center on Transnational Crime — and only upon receipt of a corresponding court order.
Dela Rosa’s legal team filed an urgent motion before the Supreme Court, seeking protection from what his lawyers described as a “three-layered enforcement strategy” — citing the DILG’s 10,000-member task force preparations, a subpoena from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group requiring his appearance at Camp Crame on May 14, and references to enforcement through an Interpol red notice or diffusion notice.
The lawyers argued that none of those mechanisms — individually or collectively — could substitute for a warrant issued by a Philippine judge on an independent finding of probable cause, as required under the Constitution.
The Senate, now led by Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano following Monday’s leadership shakeup in which Dela Rosa himself cast a vote, placed the senator under the upper chamber’s protective custody. Cayetano said he would only allow Dela Rosa’s arrest if a warrant were issued by a Philippine court, citing the precedents of former senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon “Bong” Revilla.
Dela Rosa had been absent from Senate sessions since November 2025 — when the existence of the ICC warrant was first disclosed by then-Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, now serving as Ombudsman — before resurfacing on Monday to participate in the vote that ousted Senate President Tito Sotto.
