The Philippines has pledged to cooperate with a request from the International Criminal Court (ICC) to detain Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief, who evaded arrest earlier this week amid gunfire in the Senate building.

Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida said on Friday that Manila had received the court’s arrest warrant for dela Rosa and considers it valid. The ICC unsealed the warrant on Monday, charging the 64-year-old with crimes against humanity for his role in former President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly drug war.

“We will definitely submit to the request of the ICC,” Vida told reporters, noting that authorities await a Supreme Court ruling on the senator’s petition challenging the warrant’s legality.

News of the impending warrant in November had seen dela Rosa disappear from public life. He emerged on Monday to cast a deciding vote in a leadership contest favoring a Duterte ally, but fled into the Senate building when law enforcement agents arrived.

Two days later, the Senate was shaken by gunshots as armed soldiers stormed the building to arrest him. The senator’s whereabouts remain unknown, and Vida warned that helping him leave the country would be a “mockery of justice.”

Dela Rosa faces the same charges as Duterte, who has been in ICC custody in The Hague since March 2025. The ICC estimates Duterte’s “war on drugs” killed between 12,000 and 30,000 people from 2016 to 2019.

Source: www.aljazeera.com