Overview
- Government lawyers, in a filing shared Sunday, urged the Supreme Court to dismiss Senator Ronald Dela Rosa’s petition and said his conduct makes him a fugitive until he submits to authorities.
- The justice department said the ICC warrant will be carried out after the court rules unless Dela Rosa tries to leave the country, and his location remains unknown after he slipped out of the Senate early Thursday following a shooting incident.
- The Office of the Solicitor General argued the executive branch can enforce the ICC warrant without a separate Philippine court order under Republic Act 9851, a law that permits surrender of suspects to international courts.
- The ICC unsealed the warrant last week, naming Dela Rosa a co-perpetrator in murder as a crime against humanity tied to the 2016 to 2018 drug crackdown, while former president Rodrigo Duterte has been held in The Hague since March 2025.
- Dela Rosa claims the 2019 withdrawal from the Rome Statute voids ICC reach, but government lawyers say withdrawal does not end cooperation duties for cases already underway.