Senate officials said Wednesday that gunshots were heard in the Philippine Senate building and a senator wanted by the International Criminal Court barricaded himself in the building for resisting arrest.
No casualties were reported and details of the shooting remain unclear. Several senators told local media it was unclear who fired the shots.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos claimed the incident was not carried out by government officials, but was an apparent gunfight between unidentified armed groups and Senate security officials. Marcos said no government forces attempted to invade the Senate to arrest Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, a longtime ally of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Sen. Ronald dela Rosa had evaded arrest by local law enforcement authorities earlier this week.
Sen. de la Rosa was seen on surveillance video running through the halls of the Senate on Monday, trying to escape from local officials. A series of security lockdowns were established inside the building as riot police surrounded the Senate grounds.
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have accused Mr. de la Rosa of conspiring with Mr. Duterte to commit alleged crimes against humanity during a brutal anti-drug campaign that left thousands of people dead. On Monday, the ICC confirmed it had issued a warrant for his arrest for the killings of 32 people between 2016 and 2018.
Mr. de la Rosa, 64, has not left the Senate grounds since Monday and is seeking a temporary restraining order from the local Supreme Court against the ICC’s warrant.
The country’s Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla entered the Senate building on Wednesday night after allowing Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, who is seen as an ally of President Duterte, to enter after hearing gunshots.
Mr. Remulla assured Mr. de la Rosa that no arrest warrant would be issued. The interior secretary also said de la Rosa would remain inside the building while authorities provided security.
Remura told local media that all senators inside the building were safe and that he was working to determine who fired the shots.
A video released by Philippine news outlet Rappler shows the moment gunshots echoed through the hall as reporters were filming security operations by soldiers, police and the Senate ahead of an impending lockdown. The source of the gunfire is unknown, and journalists were seen fleeing after multiple shots were fired.
Police then ordered all reporters to leave, a local journalist told CNN. After reporters were moved outside, Senate security staff closed the building’s steel doors, trapping them inside.
“I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know if we can keep our people safe here,” recently installed Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano said on a Facebook livestream from inside the Senate chamber shortly after the shooting. “I’m willing to stand up to anyone who tries to execute a warrant…but please don’t do that.”
In a subsequent video livestream, Cayetano said “everyone is safe right now,” including Dela Rosa, adding that Senate authorities were still investigating the source of the gunshots and would allow residents to leave “once we are sure it is not a suspect.”
Before the shooting, Mr. de la Rosa holed up in the Senate chamber for two nights, pleading in a news conference livestreamed on Facebook not to be sent to The Hague, Netherlands, to face prosecution.
He reiterated his position that the ICC had no authority to arrest him without the approval of the local Supreme Court. When asked about the possibility of his arrest, the lawmaker appeared tearful and said, “This was the lowest point in my life.”
“As long as they follow the proper process, I’m going to face it. If there’s a legitimate arrest warrant, it should be filed in district court. Let’s argue, and we’re going to face it,” he said Tuesday.
This avoidance of due process is part of what Mr. Duterte and Mr. de la Rosa are accused of.
Philippine President Marcos said Wednesday night that he had not directed the National Police or the National Bureau of Investigation to execute de la Rosa’s arrest warrant while the Supreme Court proceedings were ongoing.
Dela Rosa, nicknamed “Bato,” meaning “rock,” is from the Davao region in the southern Philippines and has been a loyal sidekick of Duterte for many years. The former police officer rose to fame thanks to his close ties to the strongman leader who ruled the Philippines with an iron fist from 2016 to 2022. This period was the height of the war on drugs.
Dela Rosa served as police chief when Duterte was mayor of Davao City, where police are accused of using a tactic known as “opran tokhang,” in which low-level contractors are forced to surrender and then executed.
For more than 20 years, anti-drug operations have been carried out across Davao. According to Human Rights Watch, when Mr. Duterte became president and Mr. de la Rosa rose to the upper echelons of the national police, extrajudicial killings spread across the country.
The ICC’s arrest warrant alleges that de la Rosa used his position as national police chief to carry out Tokhang-style killings nationwide during Duterte’s presidency, a charge he has repeatedly denied.
In a 2016 interview with CNN, Dela Rosa said police officers would kill suspected drug traffickers “if it endangered our lives.”
According to police data, more than 6,000 people have been killed in anti-drug operations since President Duterte took office. Many of the extrajudicial killings of drug suspects occur in the country’s poorest regions, and independent observers believe the number of those killed may be even higher.
Duterte himself was dramatically arrested at Manila’s international airport in March 2025, put on a plane to The Hague, and remains in ICC custody. A start date for his trial has not yet been set.
President Duterte has long denied accusations of human rights abuses, insisting the drug problem should be solved by domestic law enforcement. He has repeatedly said he has no intention of bowing down to the ICC’s foreign jurisdiction.
The Philippines was a member of the ICC, but President Duterte revoked its membership after the court launched an investigation into Duterte’s war on drugs. However, under the ICC’s withdrawal mechanism, the court retains jurisdiction over crimes committed during the accession period, in this case between 2016 and 2019, when the Philippines’ withdrawal became official.
Despite months of speculation that he was close to obtaining an ICC warrant, Mr. de la Rosa has not appeared in public.
But he made another public appearance at the Senate chamber on Monday, appearing to take part in the latest episode in the long-running saga between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte, Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter.
Two things happened on Monday. The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach the vice president on a variety of charges, including misappropriation of public funds, accumulation of unused wealth, and plotting to assassinate the president. She is currently awaiting trial in the Senate. If they kick her out, she won’t be running for president in 2028.
To aid the political survival of Mr. Duterte’s family, Mr. de la Rosa and other senators voted to oust the speaker of Congress and install Mr. Cayetano, an ally of Mr. Duterte, as president of the Senate.
Shortly after the vote, Dela Rosa was placed in “protective custody,” effectively shielding him from the threat of arrest, according to the government-run Philippine News Agency.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
