Police have since identified a suspect in the shooting: a driver working with the country’s National Bureau of Investigation, the agency that has attempted to carry out an ICC warrant on Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa since Monday.
On Wednesday afternoon, before the Senate shooting incident, dela Rosa broadcast live on social media and claimed that his arrest was imminent, saying he received information that after that day’s session, operatives from the NBI and the police’s investigative arm, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, would head there to arrest him.
Current President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. denied ordering the arrest of dela Rosa, a staunch ally of the Dutertes, a prominent political dynasty with whom Marcos Jr. has since had a falling-out. The President also urged the public to remain calm amid the incident.
After Duterte won the 2016 presidential elections, he handpicked dela Rosa, who had previously been police director in the Dutertes’ political home turf in the country’s south, Davao City, to be national police chief.
Vigilante executions increased, and many from the urban poor were killed. Just months in, the drug war had caused more than 2,000 deaths—either in police operations or extrajudicial killings—of alleged, small-time drug users and dealers. Children also died. At the end of President Duterte’s term in 2022, more than 6,000 were killed in anti-illegal drugs operations according to government figures. Human rights groups, however, estimate the death toll to be in the tens of thousands.
Riding on the drug war’s popularity, dela Rosa, after a brief stint in the country’s Bureau of Corrections, ran for Senate in 2019 and won, ranking as the fifth most-voted candidate with over 19 million votes. He has continued to defend Duterte’s drug war as Senator and, at one point, was widely panned after a toddler died in police-led anti-drug operations, which he dismissed as “sh-t happens” and “collateral damage.” He was reelected to a six-year term in May 2025.
Why did dela Rosa go into hiding?
On Nov. 6, 2025, the ICC issued in secret an arrest warrant against dela Rosa for his involvement in Duterte’s drug war. The Philippines’ Ombudsman then went public with the warrant’s issuance. Since Nov. 11, dela Rosa has been absent from Senate sessions.
Why did dela Rosa resurface after hiding?
As the ICC case unfolded, the Duterte family was also taking a domestic political battering. The House of Representatives had been working on the second impeachment of incumbent Vice President Sara Duterte, who leads in public opinion polling to be the next Philippine President.
However, NBI agents had been waiting to serve the arrest warrant against dela Rosa. This resulted in an extraordinary chase within the Senate premises—a cat-and-mouse game captured on CCTV, where dela Rosa, 64, could be seen running and weaving through corridors and stairwells. Dela Rosa eventually found refuge in the Senate’s main chamber, which has traditionally disallowed arrests as a sign of respect for the institution.
Dela Rosa holed up in the Senate premises, but he left Thursday, before the NBI said it would hold off on arresting him pending a ruling from the Supreme Court.
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