A warrant for Senator Jinggoy Estrada’s arrest would be served regardless of any shelter the Senate might extend to him, the Philippine National Police signaled Monday.
The position was laid out by the head of the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Police Major General Robert Alexander Morico II, who fielded questions on how officers would proceed should the chamber move to shield Estrada from a pending warrant. “If there is a warrant to arrest, we will have to implement it. I think we will have to follow the order of the court,” he told reporters at a briefing.
Whether officers would enter the Senate itself to carry out such an arrest was treated as a more complicated question. Nartatez said any move would hinge on the specific charge and on the rules governing legislative immunity. Lawmakers, he pointed out, cannot generally be detained during a session when the offense in question carries a maximum penalty of six years or less.
The legal exposure facing Estrada runs along two tracks. The Sandiganbayan’s Second Division ordered his arrest last Friday in a graft case tied to purported payoffs in flood control contracts. He secured provisional liberty by posting P90,000 in bail and rejected the accusations outright.
“Mariin kong itinatanggi ang mga paratang laban sa akin. Ang mga ito ay walang batayan at walang bahid ng katotohanan. I respect the rule of law and our judicial institutions, and this is precisely why I am posting bail and personally submitting myself to the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan,” the senator said.
A second, heavier matter remains unresolved. The court’s Fifth Division could still issue its own warrant over a P573-million plunder charge against him — one that carries no option for bail.
The prospect of a senator being shielded inside the chamber is not hypothetical. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa entered Senate protective custody last month after the International Criminal Court sought his arrest over killings linked to the drug war. Gunfire was reported inside the Senate during a lockdown on May 13, and dela Rosa slipped out of the building in the early hours of May 14. The teams assigned to find and detain him have yet to bring him in.
