Vice President Sara Duterte described as a “disrespect” to the Philippine Senate the dramatic Wednesday night arrest of Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, saying the incident left her both angry and saddened.
The arrest triggered a tense scene inside the Senate, with gunshots heard in the building and journalists scrambling for cover amid the chaos.
Duterte was in The Hague visiting her father, detained former president Rodrigo Duterte, when she spoke to blogger Alvin Zarzate and drew a direct line between what happened to Dela Rosa and her father’s detention at the International Criminal Court.
“It wasn’t a surrender. Because you forcibly took a person from their own country and brought them to another. That was the opinion and perspective of the world on what happened then,” she said, characterizing the elder Duterte’s arrest last year on crimes against humanity charges as tantamount to “kidnapping” or “extraordinary rendition.”
She applied the same legal argument to Dela Rosa’s arrest, insisting that ICC-issued warrants carry no binding force in the Philippines because the court lacks domestic jurisdiction over the country.
“That is why all issuances from foreign courts and foreign tribunals have no force or effect in the Philippines. The only exception is if they are filed within our local courts, and it is the local courts that issue their own Philippine order based on what is deliberated in the case. That is the proper process,” Duterte said in Filipino.
