The National Bureau of Investigation had no agents deployed at the Senate and issued no orders to arrest Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, NBI Director Melvin Matibag said Thursday, pushing back against accusations that his agency sparked the violent standoff at the chamber on the night of May 13.
Matibag said the bureau was operating under direct instructions from the Department of Justice to stand down. “(Department of Justice Secretary Fredderick) Vida even gave us instructions that we should not do anything,” he said.
The denials came after several senators pointed to the NBI as the party that ignited tensions by attempting to serve the International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Dela Rosa, who faces charges of crimes against humanity for his role as Philippine National Police chief during the Duterte administration’s drug war.
Matibag said he received a call from a senator during the incident asking him to pull NBI agents out of the Senate premises following reports of gunfire. His response was unequivocal. “I told the senator that we have no agents there, and there were really no agents there,” he said. He told the same senator to have any individuals inside the Senate claiming to be NBI agents taken into custody.
He also declined to go to the Senate in person when pressed to do so. “We are already being accused that we were the ones who fired the shots. How can we go there?” Matibag said, adding that physically sending his people there would have exposed them to being implicated in the incident.
On reports that NBI operatives had disguised themselves as members of the press inside the Senate, Matibag again rejected any agency involvement. He said the government had yet to convene an interagency meeting to determine how it would formally respond to the ICC warrant — a process that was still being coordinated at the time of the incident.
