Senator Bato de la Rosa broke his months-long silence on his 64th birthday on Wednesday, assuring his supporters that he is “alive and well” amid the alleged impending warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
De la Rosa said he remains “patient and composed” as he waits for justice to emerge in the face of “threat of fake and foreign meddling.”
The senator did not explicitly refer to the ICC, but he has been missing in action in the Senate since Ombudsman Boying Remulla announced in November that an ICC warrant is already out for De la Rosa.
Neither Malacañang nor the Department of the Interior and Local Government confirmed the existence of the warrant, but Remulla insisted that he had seen the document firsthand through a liaison from the ICC, though specifics, such as the exact date, were not divulged.
De la Rosa reiterated that he would only face charges regarding his role in the bloody war on drugs of the Duterte administration if they were filed and tried in Philippine courts.
"If I were to allow myself to be arrested and tried by foreign people and courts, it would be as if I were also disregarding the struggle our heroes and soldiers who fought for our independence,” the former police chief asserted in Filipino.
De la Rosa is one with allies and supporters of former president Rodrigo Duterte that the ICC no longer has jurisdiction over the Philippines, following its withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the tribunal's treaty, in March 2019.
The ICC, however, argued that it still retains jurisdiction over the alleged extrajudicial killings related to the drug war that were committed prior to the country’s exit.
De la Rosa also took a swipe at “those who are all-too-eager and impatient” about his supposed arrest, criticizing them for allegedly being anti-Filipino, and that he wished that they would have a “change of heart.”
“[T]ry flipping your script. Ask yourself: why are you excited to surrender your fellow Filipino to foreigners? Where is your moral fiber?” the senator argued.
It has long been speculated that De la Rosa might be the next in line to face trial at the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands, where his former boss, Duterte, has been detained for crimes against humanity since his arrest in Manila on 11 March.
De la Rosa served as Duterte’s first PNP chief, before retired police general Oscar Albayalde replaced him in mid 2018.
Records from the ICC showed that during Duterte’s presidency, he implemented the so-called “common plan” with his co-perpetrators, including members of the Philippine National Police, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the National Bureau of Investigation, and high-ranking government officials.
De la Rosa was also the signatory of the Command Memorandum Circular 16-2016, which outlined general guidelines and tasks of police offices, units, and stations in the nationwide conduct of the brutal anti-drug campaign, dubbed as “Project Double Barrel,” most commonly known as “Oplan Tokhang” under Duterte’s watch.
ICC records showed that Duterte has nine co-perpetrators in his crimes against humanity case, though their names remain undisclosed as the documents are heavily redacted.
However, specific individuals in the police force, including De la Rosa, were publicly named in some of the documents for their significant roles in the controversial anti-narcotics campaign.
The government logged more than 6,000 drug-related deaths covering only Duterte’s tenure as president, though rights watchdogs estimate that the actual death toll could exceed 30,000, most of them from poor communities.