The National Bureau of Investigation has identified three senior officials — Senator Robin Padilla, Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Mao Aplasca — as persons of interest in connection with the exit of Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa from the Senate premises in the early hours of Thursday, despite being under the chamber’s protective custody.
NBI Director Melvin Matibag named the three during an interview on ANC, saying they would be the first ones asked to account for dela Rosa’s whereabouts. “To a certain extent as to the disappearance of Sen. Bato, sila talaga yung persons of interest. Pero kung i-pursue yung investigating, we’re not yet on that level,” Matibag said.
He was careful to clarify the designation’s scope, saying that being named a person of interest simply means they “must be first to answer pag tanong natin nasaan si Sen. Bato dela Rosa.”
Cayetano confirmed that dela Rosa had left the Senate compound at around 2:30 a.m. Thursday, hours after gunshots were fired inside the building. Cayetano said dela Rosa had left together with Senator Robin Padilla, though his report did not confirm whether the two senators rode in the same vehicle.
The shooting, which lasted roughly three minutes along a second-floor corridor, drew immediate suspicion. NBI agents believe the Senate commotion on Wednesday night may have been staged to cover dela Rosa’s departure — a theory Matibag said was plausible given that dela Rosa had been in hiding for the past six months. Cayetano angrily denied that the incident was engineered as a diversionary tactic.
Dela Rosa had been under Senate protective custody since Monday, May 11, after he broke free from NBI agents attempting to serve an ICC arrest warrant and fled several floors up into his Senate office. The ICC warrant, issued secretly on November 6, 2025, and unsealed on May 11, charges dela Rosa as a co-perpetrator in crimes against humanity — specifically murder and attempted murder — in connection with the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
Matibag argued that it was the Senate’s responsibility to surrender dela Rosa to authorities, given that it had taken him under protective custody, and invoked dela Rosa’s own record as former PNP chief. He noted that dela Rosa had in the past urged fugitives to peacefully submit to authorities so there would be “no more chaos, no more pursuit, and so you can face your responsibility under the law.”
In a radio interview Thursday morning, dela Rosa said he would “exhaust all available remedies” to block his transfer to the ICC, and after learning about the conditions Duterte was being held under, he was no longer willing to fight his case at The Hague.
