DOJ: Bato ‘a fugitive’; protectors face raps
Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida on Thursday warned that anyone who helps Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa in evading an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity would face domestic and international legal consequences.
The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) both declared Dela Rosa a “fugitive from justice.” They said that the Supreme Court had cleared the way for his arrest on charges of crimes against humanity in the ICC after it denied his request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to block the arrest warrant.
“He is charged as a co-perpetrator in the crime against humanity,” Vida said in a news conference. “Senator Bato is a fugitive from justice and he should be brought to the ICC to face the charges before him.”
Vida said the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation were ordered to immediately enforce the ICC arrest order against the senator—former President Rodrigo Duterte’s first national police chief who implemented his brutal war on drugs that killed thousands of Filipinos.
‘Validly issued warrant’
“Those who might be aiding, abetting or helping Senator Bato evade the law, there are consequences,” he said. “We know that under the rule of law, there is accountability … not only in the eyes of Philippine law but also under the law of the ICC, because this is a validly issued arrest warrant.”
He did not specify what action may be taken against persons who help the senator evade law enforcement.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court voted 9-5-1 to reject Dela Rosa’s request for a TRO to stop authorities from implementing the warrant. The high court, however, said it had yet to rule on the constitutional issues raised against the warrant by Dela Rosa.
The OSG said in a statement that the denial of the TRO “affirms that there is no legal impediment to the enforcement of the ICC warrant.”
Duterte is being held in an ICC detention facility in The Hague, the Netherlands, where he was flown following his arrest in Manila in March last year. Duterte, Dela Rosa, Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go and six others are accused as indirect co-perpetrators in the crimes against humanity of murder and attempted murder in the drug war.
The arrest warrant was issued by the ICC secretly in November 2025. Hearing word about it, Dela Rosa went into hiding and appeared at the Senate only on May 11 to vote for Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano as Senate President and head of the new majority in the chamber. It was the same day that the ICC unsealed, or made the arrest warrant, public.
The senator evaded arrest by NBI agents waiting for him at the time. He sought refuge in the Senate where the senators under Cayetano took him into “protective custody.”
Dela Rosa, however, sneaked out of the Senate in a car owned by Sen. Robinhood Padilla early on Thursday and hours after an exchange of gunfire between personnel from the Senate Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms and the NBI, according to investigators. No one was injured in that shooting incident.
Vida said the implementation of the ICC warrant was not a political act but a state obligation.
He said that the drug war victims and their families, including children, had been waiting for justice for years.
“We’re pursuing this so that the ends of justice may be achieved,” he said, referring to people who were killed in the drug war and the loved ones they left behind.
“They can no longer get lawyers or seek a TRO,” he said. “The obligation of the government is to assist, aid and help them obtain the justice that they seek, and the arrest of Senator Bato is part of that.”
Committed to rule of law
In its comment against Dela Rosa’s request for a TRO, the OSG said the senator failed to meet the baseline legal requirements for an injunction. The senator could not demonstrate a “clear and unmistakable right” needing immediate shield, and he was unable to prove any “urgent and irreparable injury” he might suffer, it said.
Beyond the legal technicalities, the OSG maintained that the government was committed to human rights and the rule of law. “There are crimes so grave that our government cannot simply look away,” it said.
Dela Rosa’s recent actions reflected “the essence of a fugitive from justice who is not entitled to any judicial relief,” the OSG said.
Citing an earlier court ruling, it said that a fugitive from justice “is one who not only flees after conviction to avoid punishment, but also those who, after being charged, flee to avoid prosecution.”
The OSG cited the senator’s public pronouncements against submission to authorities, his refusal to surrender, his recourse to judicial remedies while evading arrest, his “suspicious exit” from the Senate premises, the refusal of his lawyers to disclose his location, and his wife’s statement that he “escaped.” It said that taken together, these “demonstrate intent to evade the law.”
“His conduct clearly places him within the definition of a fugitive from justice,” the OSG said.
PNP border watch
It urged the Supreme Court not only to look at the law but also at the “highest purpose of law, which is to attain justice.”
Dela Rosa’s case forces the country to confront a deeper internal question and the government’s response “will demonstrate what the rule of law truly means to the Filipino people,” it said.
The PNP prepared its various border units to prevent Dela Rosa from leaving the country.
“Police forces … were alerted to be on the lookout and to intensify intelligence monitoring on all exit points, including the southern backdoor,” PNP chief Police Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. said in a statement on Thursday.
“The Philippine National Police … has alerted the personnel of the Maritime Group and the Aviation Security Group against any attempt of Sen. Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa to leave the country,” Nartatez said. —WITH A REPORT FROM JASON SIGALES
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