Four government agencies moved to knock down claims on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, that fugitive Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa had been taken into custody, with the National Bureau of Investigation stating flatly that its manhunt for the ICC-wanted lawmaker is still running.
NBI Director Melvin Matibag was direct when pressed on whether agents had apprehended the senator. “Hindi. Sa amin, wala,” Matibag told reporters — no, not on the bureau’s end. He confirmed that operations to locate Dela Rosa, a co-accused of former President Rodrigo Duterte in the International Criminal Court’s crimes against humanity case, remain ongoing.
The Department of Justice offered the same answer. DOJ spokesperson Atty. Polo Martinez said the department had yet to receive any information verifying the reported arrest, telling a press briefing that he could not confirm it, at least not yet. The Philippine National Police and the Department of the Interior and Local Government echoed the denial, with Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla saying the PNP had received nothing to support the report.
Dela Rosa’s own lawyer likewise dismissed the talk. Legal counsel Israelito Torreon said he had no information on his client’s supposed apprehension and had not communicated with the senator since the early morning of May 14, roughly two hours before Dela Rosa slipped out of the Senate building.
The senator, who chaired the PNP from 2016 to 2018 during the height of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, has evaded arrest since the NBI first tried to serve him the ICC warrant at the Senate on May 11. The court in The Hague is pursuing him over alleged crimes against humanity tied to the drug war’s killings.
Tuesday’s episode mirrors a similar wave of false arrest posts that circulated in early July, both surfacing at moments of heightened public attention on the manhunt. For now, the warrant stays unserved, and the man at its center remains beyond the reach of the agencies tasked with finding him.
