Philippines announce bounty on senator wanted by the ICC for crime against humanity

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine officials announced a bounty Friday for the capture of a senator who has been ordered arrested by the International Criminal Court for an alleged crime against humanity in connection with deadly anti-drugs crackdowns.

The court alleges that Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, 64, was an “indirect co-conspirator” of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who was arrested last year and now faces trial for alleged crimes linked to the so-called war on drugs he waged while in office.

Dela Rosa last appeared in public when he went to the Philippine Senate briefly in May but fled after the international court in The Hague, Netherlands, made public a warrant for his arrest.

Dela Rosa was the first national police chief designated by Duterte to enforce the brutal crackdowns he launched after becoming president in 2016. After dela Rosa retired from the police force, he was appointed as a top prisons official before successfully running for a Senate seat in 2019.

Estimates of the death toll in the crackdown on drugs during Duterte’s presidential term vary, from the more than 6,000 reported by the national police to up to 30,000 claimed by human rights groups.

Duterte and dela Rosa denied authorizing extrajudicial killings.

The ICC warrant, originally issued confidentially in November last year, charged dela Rosa with murder of “no less than 32 persons” allegedly committed between July 2016 and April 2018.

Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla announced a bounty of 50 million pesos ($787,000) for dela Rosa’s capture in a televised news conference with top police officials. He said that the fugitive senator was being monitored in the country’s south and authorities were negotiating for his peaceful surrender to prevent a potentially deadly clash.

“We have given him all the courtesy that could be afforded as a senator of the Republic of the Philippines, but he has shown nothing but cowardice by going into and remaining in hiding,” Remulla said.

“It’s time for the gloves to come off. It’s time to render justice to his victims,” he added.

A police task force led by a general has been formed to lead the manhunt for dela Rosa, who was now considered “armed and dangerous,” Remulla said without elaborating. Philippine officials have said they would hand over dela Rosa to the ICC if he’s captured.

Duterte, whose stormy six-year term ended in 2022, was arrested in March last year at Manila’s international airport on an ICC warrant. He was flown to The Netherlands and will face a trial in The Hague starting on Nov. 30.

The ICC’s investigations into drug killings under Duterte spanned from 2011, when he was still mayor of the southern Philippine city of Davao, to 2019 during his presidency.