The Justice department has placed Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa on a tight leash, ordering law enforcement and immigration authorities to arrest him on the spot should he attempt to leave the Philippines, following the International Criminal Court’s issuance of a warrant against him.
Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida issued the directive at a press briefing on Friday, May 15, saying any escape attempt would be treated as a affront to justice. “The DOJ will treat any attempt of Senator (Dela Rosa) to leave the country as a mockery of justice. And I’m giving specific orders to law enforcement agents, to our border control authorities, that if Senator (Dela Rosa) would try to leave the country, the appropriate arrest should be given,” he said, as reported by Inquirer.net.
Dela Rosa is now formally regarded as an ICC fugitive on charges of crimes against humanity, named as a co-perpetrator in the same case confronting former President Rodrigo Duterte. He was last publicly seen at the Senate on the evening of Wednesday, May 13, before slipping out in the early hours of May 14 following a tense incident in which more than 32 shots were reportedly fired inside the Senate building. Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano said 27 of those shots came from personnel of the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms.
The DOJ has since constituted a special panel of prosecutors to investigate the shooting.
On the mechanics of a possible arrest, Vida clarified that the agency’s current legal instrument is an immigration lookout bulletin order (ILBO) — a tool that, unlike a hold-departure order issued by a court, does not directly prohibit a person from leaving the country, but flags their movement at the border. “Once the immigration authorities hold him at the border…(they) will contact our law enforcement agents and (they) will arrest him,” he explained.
The secretary said the government stands ready to fulfill its obligation to detain and surrender dela Rosa to the international tribunal, but acknowledged that the Executive branch is currently waiting on the Supreme Court to rule on the senator’s petition for a temporary restraining order to halt his arrest. “We expect that the appropriate turnover will be made to the DOJ once all the legal issues have been resolved for this arrest,” Vida said.
That legal caution also extends to the parallel petition filed by Duterte and dela Rosa before the Supreme Court last year, which challenges the government’s cooperation with the ICC — a matter still unresolved. Vida nonetheless affirmed that the Philippines recognizes ICC jurisdiction over acts committed before the country’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute in 2019, citing the Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling in Pangilinan v. Cayetano, which held that a state’s treaty obligations do not simply lapse upon withdrawal.
Unlike the process that led to Duterte’s arrest, Vida said the government will not be routing this case through Interpol. “In this case, it’s not the Interpol — it’s the ICC itself,” he said, adding that the DOJ will act directly on the ICC arrest warrant. The same directive would apply if dela Rosa were found abroad.
When asked whether senators who may have facilitated dela Rosa’s departure from the Senate could face obstruction of justice charges, Vida declined to prejudge the outcome: “I don’t want to preempt the investigation.”
