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Marc Jason Cayabyab - The Philippine Star
January 16, 2026 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson has advised his fellow former police chief Ronald dela Rosa to stop hiding and instead report for duty as a duly elected senator.
During the Kapihan sa Senado forum on Wednesday, Lacson pointed out that the rumored International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant for crimes against humanity for Dela Rosa has not yet been proven.
So this means Dela Rosa is not yet a “wanted” person.
“The problem with Senator Bato, we have no official warrant of arrest coming from the ICC. It doesn’t make sense to me that he is hiding when he is not yet wanted,” Lacson said.
“If I were him, I will report for work. I don’t have a warrant,” he added.
Dela Rosa has not been seen in the Senate since November last year when Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla claimed there was already an ICC arrest warrant against Dela Rosa for his role in former president Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs.
Duterte is detained at The Hague, Netherlands pending trial for the alleged state policy of killing poor drug users and pushers.
Dela Rosa failed to defend the 2026 budgets of national security agencies assigned to him, and also snubbed his duties as Senate finance committee vice chair and member of the Senate bicameral conference committee contingent that finalized the budget bill.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla has said Dela Rosa is still in his Davao turf, “just going around on a motorcycle.”
Lacson said Dela Rosa should already surface in the Senate so that his vote on pending bills would not go to waste.
“If there is no arrest warrant, he should come to work. His votes on the Senate bills and resolution are being wasted,” Lacson said.
But Lacson has acknowledged he does not have the “moral ascendancy” to advise Dela Rosa to surrender if there is indeed an arrest warrant.
Lacson evaded authorities and went into hiding in 2010 during the Arroyo administration, which filed what he described as a politically motivated Dacer-Corbito double murder case against him.
“I cannot tell him to surrender. I have no moral ascendancy, because I myself have hidden,” Lacson said.
It is difficult to hide from authorities, Lacson said as he was asked elsewhere during the briefing about the possible arrest or deportation of former public works secretary Manuel Bonoan.
Bonoan left for the US and has not returned amid ongoing investigations on his role in the multibillion-peso flood control corruption scandal.
“I am the only one who hid and was not captured. Hiding is hard, very hard,” Lacson said.
Robin defends Bato
Sen. Robin Padilla went on a lengthy rant on Facebook to defend his fellow Duterte bloc member Dela Rosa, who has been missing for two months.
Padilla tried to argue with Dela Rosa critics by saying the former police chief is a “war veteran,” a “worker,” a “man of action not of words,” and a “man on the ground, not of theories and data.”
Dela Rosa’s office is also functioning despite the senator’s absence from the Senate premises, Padilla said.
Dela Rosa is absent not because he is on vacation, but because he is facing “persecution by a foreign power,” Padilla said in Filipino, adding that Dela Rosa is merely being a “Filipino protecting his rights in his home country.”
Padilla said Dela Rosa “is a Senator of the Filipino people, not a Senator of the senate building.”
“His staff is complete. They are capable in the office and are working on proposed bills. They have complete communication because of technology. His office is functioning. Why are they jealous and they need to have interest in punishing him for not attending the session?” Padilla said in Filipino on his Facebook post.
“Why are you hot on the heels of Senator Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa? His fighting stance as a policeman shows his professionalism at work wherever he is in the Philippines. He is not a pulis patola!” Padilla added.
