INTERIOR and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla said on Monday, October 19, 2026, that arresting fugitive Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa could cost hundreds of lives, as the lawmaker is allegedly being protected by a powerful armed group.
In a television interview, Remulla said Dela Rosa was under the protection of a wealthy armed group in a remote part of Davao City.
“They are a powerful group there that we have to negotiate. Otherwise, if we go in hard the body bags will be high. I can order it but if it involves the death of 300 policemen, it will be worse than (what happened in) Marawi,” he said.
“We do not a want a civil war to start because of an arrest of one man. We want to do it properly, we want to do it judiciously and we want to do it cleanly. Just like the arrest of the other senators, we did it properly, and we did not resort to violence,” he added, speaking in a mix of Tagalog and English.
Remulla also acknowledged that he failed to arrest Dela Rosa at the Senate in May 2026 because he chose to honor a “gentleman’s agreement” with the Senate leadership at the time.
“Now, I will no longer honor that agreement. If you treat us badly, I will treat you the same way—not in the sense that I will break any laws, but don’t use it as a shield to prevent us from enforcing the law,” he said.
Dela Rosa evaded arrest by National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents who sought to serve an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The NBI attempted to serve the warrant when Dela Rosa suddenly appeared at the Senate on May 11, 2026, the same day the ICC publicly unsealed the warrant against him.
Dela Rosa had been absent from Senate sessions for months before his return. His appearance coincided with a change in Senate leadership, with Vicente “Tito” Sotto III being replaced by Sen. Allan Peter Cayetano.
Dela Rosa stayed at the Senate for three days under protective custody before leaving with Sen. Robin Padilla in the early hours of May 14. Hours earlier, a shooting incident had caused chaos at the Senate complex.
The ICC has accused Dela Rosa of being an indirect co-perpetrator of the crime against humanity of murder in connection with former president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe that Dela Rosa was criminally responsible for murders allegedly committed between July 3, 2016, and the end of April 2018, involving people perceived or alleged to be associated with illegal drug use, sale or production.
The ICC cited Dela Rosa’s positions in the Philippine National Police (PNP), including his posts in the Davao region and as PNP chief, as well as his later role as director general of the Bureau of Corrections. (TPM)