The Philippine Supreme Court has rejected a bid by Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa to block his arrest and transfer to the International Criminal Court (ICC), clearing the legal path for authorities to detain him. Dela Rosa, a former national police chief, has been charged by the ICC with crimes against humanity for his central role in the deadly anti-drug campaign waged under former President Rodrigo Duterte between 2016 and 2022. His current whereabouts remain unknown.
The ICC unsealed its arrest warrant for Dela Rosa on May 11. In a 9-5-1 ruling, the Supreme Court denied his petition for a temporary restraining order, though it clarified that the underlying legal questions — including whether Philippine authorities have a domestic basis to execute an ICC warrant without a local court order — are yet to be resolved in the main case. The full written ruling and dissenting opinions are expected on May 25. Dela Rosa's lawyers have vowed to pursue all available legal remedies, calling the ruling "not a judgment on the merits."
The drama has unfolded with remarkable intensity. When investigators from the National Bureau of Investigation arrived at the Senate building to serve the warrant on May 11, Dela Rosa barricaded himself in his office. Allies declared the Senate had placed him under "protective custody." On the night of May 14, shots were fired inside the Senate building during a standoff between Senate security personnel and government agents seeking to apprehend him — though no one was wounded. Dela Rosa subsequently slipped out of the building before dawn and has been in hiding since. Justice Minister Fredderick Vida has described him as "a fugitive from justice" and said the Philippines would "definitely" honour the ICC warrant.
If arrested, Dela Rosa would join Duterte himself, who was transferred to the ICC's detention facility in Scheveningen, in The Hague, in March 2025. A pretrial panel last month found "substantial grounds" to believe Duterte is guilty of crimes against humanity linked to the drug campaign, in which official figures put the death toll at around 6,000, while human rights organisations estimate as many as 30,000 were killed in what they describe as a pattern of extrajudicial executions.
The legal proceedings cannot be fully separated from a wider political conflict. The events of May 11 were themselves politically charged: Dela Rosa emerged from six months of hiding specifically to cast a deciding Senate vote that installed a Duterte ally as Senate president — a move widely seen as an attempt to shield Vice President Sara Duterte from an ongoing impeachment trial. The confrontation reflects a deep and ongoing feud between the Marcos and Duterte political camps, with the 2028 presidential election — for which Sara Duterte has already declared her candidacy — already casting a long shadow over Philippine politics.