“More than a dozen” shots rang out in the Philippine Senate in the capital Manila on Wednesday after police and soldiers stormed the building. This is reported by the Reuters news agency. It is currently unclear who fired the shots, but no injuries were reported, according to Philippine authorities.
The shooting may be related to attempts to arrest Senator Ronald dela Rosa. The country’s criminal investigation department already tried to arrest him on Monday. The senator knew, according to the independent news site Rappler then escaped by hiding in the senate building, where no arrests are allowed.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos denied on Wednesday that he had ordered Dela Rosa’s arrest. The president says in a video message that he does not know who was responsible for the shooting, but that will be investigated “to the bottom”.
Do not allow another Filipino to be brought to The Hague
The International Criminal Court (ICC) made a decision on Monday in November arrest warrant issued before the Philippine senator publicly, on suspicion of crimes against humanity. Former President Rodrigo Duterte is currently on trial in The Hague for the same accusations. Dela Rosa disputes the jurisdiction of the ICC and states that an arrest must first be approved by the Philippine Supreme Court.
“Do not allow another Filipino to be brought to The Hague,” Dela Rosa said in a video on Facebook on Wednesday, referring to Duterte’s arrest. Dela Rosa, better known by his nickname ‘Bato’ (Tagalog for ‘stone’), had become the closest executor of the infamous war on drugs under Duterte.
It arrest warrant Dela Rosa’s assassinated involvement in the deaths of “as many as 32 people” in various locations in the Philippines between July 2016 and the end of April 2018, the period in which he led the national police under Duterte.
At the war on drugs drug traffickers and drug users were killed on a large scale by police officers and suspected assassination squads. The Philippine police acknowledge that more than six thousand people were killed during that time. Human rights organizations estimate the actual number of deaths much higher: between ten and thirty thousand deaths.
Political interplay
Wednesday’s attempted arrest came against the backdrop of a heated power struggle between the Marcos and Duterte families. Vice President Sara Duterte, the former president’s daughter, was impeached for the second time by the House of Representatives last Monday over alleged misuse of public funds and public threats against incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos and his family.
Sara Duterte’s candidacy for the next elections is in jeopardy because she has been removed as vice president. She is leading in the polls as a contender to succeed President Marcos.
Also read
Duterte, suspected of crimes against humanity, believed a tough approach to drug trafficking was necessary
