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MANILA: The chief enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly drug war has fled the Senate, where he had sought refuge to escape arrest over alleged crimes against humanity, the chamber’s president said on Thursday.
A day earlier gunshots rang out in the Senate in Manila during a confrontation that erupted after Senator Ronald Dela Rosa had sheltered in the building to avoid an International Criminal Court warrant.
Dela Rosa was the national police chief from 2016-2018 during the first two years of Duterte’s anti-narcotics crackdown that killed thousands and now faces ICC allegations. “The sergeant at arms has confirmed that Senator Bato is no longer in the building,” Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano told a news conference, using Dela Rosa’s nickname.
Cayetano said he gave Dela Rosa a ride to the Senate on Monday, where the former police chief narrowly evaded arrest by government agents who chased him up the stairs.
