When Sen. Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa emerged to assist Alan Peter Cayetano in seizing the Senate presidency from Sen. Tito Sotto, President Bongbong Marcos adopted a "hands-off" policy and refused to arrest the senator, despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for crimes against humanity. The same case led to the incarceration of former President Rodrigo Duterte in The Hague, Netherlands.
Government Inaction and Protective Custody
Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla even spent some "happy hours" with Bato and other senators in the Senate building. Elements of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) were ordered to stand down as the Senate placed Bato in its "protective custody." Bato later left the Senate premises with the help of Sen. Robinhood Padilla, following some "discharge of firearms" drama.
Now that Bato is gone, the Marcos government is going through the motions of searching for him. They did not arrest him when he surfaced, and now that he is missing, they want to arrest him. This situation resembles the childhood game "tago-tago," where the designated "IT" closes their eyes to allow participants to hide, then begins searching for them one by one.
Bato's Dilemma and Government Failures
Bato's predicament is understandable. He witnessed the setup involving the former president, including the hiring of expensive lawyers costing millions of pesos and the difficulty of visiting a prisoner in the Netherlands. However, Bato is still luckier than the many victims of the "war against drugs" who were killed without due process.
The Marcos government's failure to arrest Bato compounds another failure: the inability to file cases against and arrest those behind the flood control scandal. This issue will haunt the Marcos presidency until President Bongbong Marcos's term ends in 2028. This may explain the government's belated, urgent search for Bato. However, arresting him is difficult given the resources now at his disposal.
Resources and International Implications
Some insist that while Bato may not be as wealthy as his former boss, he accumulated money while in power. There are no reports of lawsuits against Bato for enriching himself, but even if he has the resources to pay expensive lawyers, incarceration abroad remains problematic, especially regarding visitation rights.
Bato should not leave the country because he is a fugitive as far as the ICC is concerned. If he travels to any ICC member country, he will be arrested there. This negates the argument that staying in the Philippines allows relatives easy access to him.
