Gunshots were fired outside the Philippine Senate building in Manila on Tuesday as Senator Ronald dela Rosa remained barricaded inside, seeking to avoid arrest on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, according to a report by Al Jazeera.
Dela Rosa, a former national police chief who served under ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, has been the subject of an ICC warrant connected to the deadly drug war campaign that defined the Duterte administration. Thousands of people were killed in that crackdown, which ran from 2016 to 2022.
Standoff at the Senate
The shooting incident added a dramatic escalation to what had already become a tense political standoff. Dela Rosa had positioned himself inside the Senate, a location that offered him a degree of political and symbolic protection, as authorities sought to execute the international arrest warrant.
The circumstances surrounding the gunfire, including who fired the shots and whether any injuries occurred, were not immediately confirmed in the source material at the time of reporting.
ICC and the Duterte drug war
The ICC has been investigating alleged extrajudicial killings carried out during Duterte's anti-drug campaign. Human rights organizations have documented thousands of deaths attributed to police operations and vigilante killings during that period.
Dela Rosa was a central figure in the enforcement of those policies as the country's top police official. His arrest warrant is part of broader ICC proceedings that have also ensnared Duterte himself, who was transferred to ICC custody earlier this year in a move that stunned the Philippines and drew sharp reactions across the political spectrum.
Political tensions in Manila
The standoff reflects the continuing political turbulence in the Philippines following the dramatic fall from power of the Duterte political bloc. Current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. initially maintained ties with the Duterte faction before a highly publicized split that has since reshaped the country's domestic politics.
The scene at the Senate - a co-equal branch of government - underscored the friction between international legal obligations and domestic political realities that Manila has been navigating since the ICC proceedings intensified.
Al Jazeera reported on the situation as it was developing, and details surrounding the full circumstances of the gunfire and the resolution of the standoff remained unclear at the time of publication.
