Besides triggering global hilarity over his viral slapstick sprint and stumble on the Senate’s back stairs and corridors, “politically expired” Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa self-confessed an undeniable truth about where true power lies.

A truth which also impacts his cohorts in the Senate’s so-called (using historian Manolo Quezon’s witty rendition) “coalition of the charged.”

“Coalition of the charged” refers to the fact that Dela Rosa isn’t the only one of the newly installed Senate majority that is facing indictment that the one true political power can switch on or off.

So, the unmistakable truth? In matters of real power, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. rules.

In fact, there’s no need to elaborate on that power after Dela Rosa himself tearfully begged: “Sana wag niya (Marcos) akong ipadala sa The Hague” (I hope he doesn’t send me to The Hague).

Further pleading, Dela Rosa cried: “Kahit saan korte dito sa Pilipinas. Pareho tayong Pilipino, Mr. President. Kung mayroon akong panagutan, panagutan ko rito sa ating local court, wag doon sa banyaga” (Whichever court here in the Philippines. Both of us are Filipinos, Mr. President. If I have to answer, I will answer before our local courts, just not before foreigners).

In those sad pleas from a man once full of chutzpah and swagger but now on the run was his unambiguous realization that in his greatest hour of need William Shakepeare’s words rang true: “Cowards die many times before their deaths.”

Whether or not Mr. Marcos heard Dela Rosa’s plea is not known.

Unclear too is how Mr. Marcos personally feels about Dela Rosa’s disreputable cohorts granting him the “protective custody of the Senate,” a strange concoction that five scandalized senators deemed to be without legal basis in their resolution urging Dela Rosa to voluntarily surrender.

But if there was a telling indication on where Mr. Marcos’ sentiments perhaps lay, Palace spokesperson Claire Castro pointedly warned the senators of their legal limitations in allowing Dela Rosa to use the Senate as a “sanctuary” to evade arrest and prosecution.

“They should know what the law is because they are legislators. So they know what their limits are, what their authority is, what their power is, but they should not go beyond the law,” Castro said.

What exactly are those limitations?

“There is something called a privilege so that no senator can be arrested while in session when he is in the vicinity of the Senate. But we know that it has a limit. When you commit a crime that has a penalty of more than six years, this privilege does not apply,” Castro said in Filipino.

The Justice department also made clear Wednesday that De la Rosa can be legally surrendered to the International Criminal Court.

Dela Rosa also scrambled to the Supreme Court, urgently seeking a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the service of the ICC arrest warrant.

But, as I write this, the High Court didn’t issue a TRO, only asking the parties involved to comment within 76 hours. This perhaps indicated that the SC was unconvinced about the merits of Dela Rosa’s petition.

Still, whatever twists and turns the Dela Rosa saga takes, one thing is clear: the senator is a goner in Philippine politics.