When Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa speaks of his loyalty and affinity to the “greatest leader on Earth,” Rodrigo Duterte, it almost always comes by way of superlatives.
Days before the 2016 presidential elections, then-chief superintendent Dela Rosa promised he could “crush” those who planned to “cheat… and manipulate” the May 9, 2016 polls. For that, he was relieved from his post — only to return as the police force’s top cop in July 2016 when Duterte started his presidential term.
In August 2016, as the drug war death toll steadily rose and criticism grew, he told reporters that he was an “official with balls” and swore that police operations, now the subject of a crimes against humanity charge before the International Criminal Court (ICC), would withstand scrutiny.
“If it will cost me my life, I am willing to face it,” said Dela Rosa back then.
Years later, in 2021, when the ICC went ahead and authorized the start of a probe into the case filed against Duterte over the drug war, Dela Rosa said he would “rather be tried, convicted and even hanged before a Filipino court.”
