Philippine senator vows to fight International Criminal Court order to arrest him over killings

MANILA: A Philippine senator who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for an alleged crime against humanity said on Tuesday that he will fight any attempt to send him to the global tribunal for prosecution, adding he never condoned extrajudicial killings when he led the country's police force.

The ICC unsealed on Monday an arrest warrant for Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, a former national police chief who had first enforced the then- President Rodrigo Duterte's anti-drugs crackdowns that had left thousands of mostly petty suspects dead.

Originally issued in November, the warrant charges dela Rosa with the crime against humanity. Murder of "no less than 32 persons" allegedly committed between July 2016 and the end of April 2018 in the Philippines.

"If I have something to answer for, I will face those in our local courts and not before foreigners," Rosa told reporters in the Senate, which took him into "protective custody" on Monday when he reappeared after months of absence.

"I will avail of all legal processes," he said, and pleaded to president Ferdinand Marcos Jr.: "Don't bring me to The Hague."

After winning the presidency in 2016, Duterte designated dela Rosa, a loyal ally, as head of the national police force, which enforced the brutal campaign against illegal drugs.

Dela Rosa also once headed the police force in the southern city of Davao, where Duterte served as a longtime mayor and built a political name for his extra-tough approach to crime.

"My role was to lead the war on drugs, and that war on drugs was not meant to annihilate people," Rosa said when he was asked about the huge death toll.

"When the lives of police officers came under threat, of course, they needed to defend themselves," he added.

Duterte's six-year term ended in mid-2022. He was arrested in March last year and detained by the ICC in the Netherlands, where he is now awaiting trial for alleged crimes against humanity in connection with several killings under his crackdown.

Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC in 2019, in a move human rights activists say was aimed at escaping accountability. The court, however, said it retained jurisdiction over crimes committed when the Philippines was still a member.

Asked if the Philippines will enforce the ICC's arrest warrant against Dela Rosa, officials suggested they were ready and could surrender him to the global court's jurisdiction, like Duterte, under a Philippine law enacted to address crimes against humanity like genocide.

"We have an obligation that all those who should be held to account should be held responsible," communications undersecretary Claire Castro said in a news briefing.

Dela Rosa cannot invoke the privilege of immunity from arrest while attending formal sessions or staying within the Senate because the crimes he allegedly committed were serious and punishable by a long prison term, Castro said.

Police have deployed nearly 350 law enforcers outside the Senate, sparking concerns from Dela Rosa and allied senators, but officials said they were assigned to keep order and not to eventually help arrest the senator.