Hours after gunfire threw the Philippine Senate into turmoil on Wednesday night, Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa quietly slipped out of the legislative building at around 2:30 a.m. Thursday — a development confirmed by a senator who cited information from the Senate Secretariat, ABS-CBN News reported.
The departure came at the tail end of one of the most chaotic nights in recent Senate history. About 15 shots were fired inside the complex as police and marines moved in, with journalists running for cover before security forces ordered an evacuation of the building. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. subsequently said no state security forces were involved in the shooting, and denied reports that government agencies had been ordered to arrest Dela Rosa.
Dela Rosa’s legal counsel, Israelito Torreon, had spent the early morning hours of Thursday pushing back against theories that the gunfire was deliberately staged to buy the senator time to leave. Torreon shared photos and a video showing Dela Rosa still inside the Senate premises at around 12:13 a.m., with the senator appearing near the area where a police line had been set up close to the alleged shooting site. “There are those who say that the shooting was just a diversion tactic to get Senator Dela Rosa out of the Senate, so let’s post this to put a stop to those stories,” Torreon said in a Facebook post early Thursday morning.
Torreon most recently posted on social media at 1:11 a.m. on Thursday, again showing a photo of Dela Rosa inside the Senate and dismissing rumors of an escape. The 2:30 a.m. exit, if confirmed, would have occurred roughly an hour after that post.
The shooting itself remained murky. Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla told media that the first shots came from personnel of the Senate Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms. Nobody was reported hurt.
Dela Rosa has been at the center of an increasingly fraught standoff since Monday, when he resurfaced in public for the first time since November to cast the deciding vote in a Senate leadership coup by Duterte ally Alan Peter Cayetano — only to find National Bureau of Investigation agents waiting for him on arrival at parliament, prompting him to flee through the chamber’s corridors.
The ICC accuses Dela Rosa of conspiring with former President Rodrigo Duterte in alleged crimes against humanity during the anti-drug campaign that killed thousands. The court confirmed Monday that an arrest warrant, originally issued confidentially in November, had been unsealed. The warrant alleges that Dela Rosa used his position as national police chief to implement “tokhang”-style killings nationally during Duterte’s presidency.
The Supreme Court did not issue the temporary restraining order Dela Rosa had sought against the ICC warrant. Instead, the court ordered the government to comment within 72 hours on his petition, and in the absence of the TRO, authorities were expected to carry out his arrest — an offense carrying a maximum penalty of life in prison, which does not grant him immunity from arrest while the Senate is in session.
