Bato goes berserk in Senate amid ICC warrant

Chaos erupted at the Senate session hall on Monday after Senator Bato de la Rosa went berserk and claimed that he was “wrestled” by authorities of the National Bureau of Investigation in an attempt to bar him from entering the institution’s premises. 

Dela Rosa, who was a no-show in the Senate for six months, unexpectedly appeared in the chamber to meet the threshold required to unseat Senate President Tito Sotto in a purported move to block an International Criminal Court warrant against him and the looming impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.

The coup against Sotto was successful after the minority secured 13 affirmative votes, outnumbering the nine senators who voted to retain Sotto. 

De la Rosa claimed that NBI attempted to block him from entering the Senate after receiving a go-signal from the Senate’s Sergeant-at-Arms in an effort to block the coup, which Sotto debunked. 

“Only now have I seen this kind of government. A sitting [senator] is being blocked and not allowed to enter the session…This is the Senate! They have no respect for the institution of the Senate!” a fuming De la Rosa told reporters, referring to the NBI. 

Operatives of the NBI and former senator Sonny Trillanes were in the Senate premises to allegedly serve an ICC warrant against the former PNP chief, who was named a co-perpetrator of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte in carrying out the deadly drug war. 

Trillanes showed reporters a copy of the alleged warrant against De la Rosa, despite the ICC denying over the weekend that it had issued it. 

Based on the copy, the warrant was issued by the ICC on 6 November last year. Recall that De la Rosa stopped physically reporting from the Senate after Ombudsman Boying Remulla claimed that a warrant was already out for him in November. 

Bato vs NBI footage  

After tension flared in the session, CCTV footage was shown to disclose the confrontation between De la Rosa and the NBI. 

The footage showed that NBI operatives chased De la Rosa in an attempt to capture him. De la Rosa entered the Senate premises through the entrance hallway from the parking area. 

The senator tripped on the stairs while evading the NBI. During the session, De la Rosa showed a bruise on his finger, which he allegedly sustained during the scuffle. 

Senators allied with De la Rosa criticized the NBI's actions against a sitting senator, with Senator Rodante Marcoleta deriding it an assault on the entire Senate as an institution. 

Marcoleta warned that NBI operatives could face legal action for violating Article 145 of the Revised Penal Code, which concerns parliamentary immunity. 

The provision penalizes the use of force, threats, or fraud to prevent members of Congress from attending sessions or voting, and restricts the arrest of members while Congress is in session.

Later in the session, Marcoleta moved to place De la Rosa under Senate protective custody until the embattled former PNP chief exhausts all legal remedies to protect himself from the ICC warrant.

Citing previous instances, where senators seek temporary refuge in the Senate amid prosecution, newly installed Senate President Alan Cayetano approved Marcoleta’s motion. 

Earlier in the same day, the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group served a subpoena at De la Rosa’s office, though his staff refused to accept it. 

The subpoena duces tecum compels De la Rosa to appear at CIDG’s office in Camp Crame at 10 a.m. on Thursday concerning its investigation into complaints of over 100 alleged extrajudicial killings during his tenure as Davao City police chief and regional director. DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla, however. clarified that this is a separate probe from that of ICC.