Shock in the Philippines: shots were heard in the Senate during the operation to arrest former President Duterte’s former police chief

The authorities ordered the eviction of the journalists and employees who were on the second floor of the Senate, where, according to those present, at least ten shots were heard, although the perpetrator has not yet been revealed.

“The Senate is being attacked. Please help us!” De la Rosa himself published on his profile. Facebooka message that the president of the Senate and also an ally of Duterte, Alan Peter Cayetano, later tried to downplay by assuring on the same social network that “so far everyone is safe.”

Images show members of the Philippine security forces armed and protected with helmets and bulletproof vests inside the Senate, whose access and exit remains blocked by the authorities.

The National Police reported that it is carrying out an assessment of the situation and noted that, according to preliminary verification, there were no victims, in what it described as a shooting inside the Senate building.

The authorities had reported shortly before that they were going to arrest “a person”, without offering more details, while the situation of De la Rosa, former head of the National Police during the war on drugs of former President Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022), currently detained in The Hague awaiting trial, is unknown.

The senator, who was recorded entering an elevator after the second floor of the building was ordered to be evacuated, had hours before called on the civilian population to “gather in front” of the chamber with the aim of preventing an arrest plan that he assured would take place today.

The archipelago press also reported on a strong police cordon that, at the doors of the chamber, controlled Duterte’s followers.

In the morning, De la Rosa ruled out surrendering, claiming that he still had legal recourse: “I can stay here as long as I remain a senator,” he said after his second night in the Senate, where arrests require specific authorizations.

On Monday, the ICC made public an arrest warrant – initially classified as secret – against De la Rosa, considered an alleged “indirect co-author” of the crimes committed during Duterte’s war on drugs, in which, according to Philippine authorities, some 6,000 people were extrajudicially murdered, a figure that NGOs raise to 30,000.

The court affirms that De la Rosa contributed essentially to public statements that “authorized, tolerated and promoted” the murders, and that he encouraged officers to justify deaths through “fictitious self-defense scenarios.”