SEVERAL groups and individuals have varying reactions on the incident at the Senate on Wednesday, with some calling it an “obstruction of justice” and others saying the move is “illegal.”
In a statement on Thursday, the Akbayan Party denounced the move of Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa to leave the Senate premises, describing it as an “obstruction of justice” and that the Senate leadership led by Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano “aided and abetted a fugitive, sheltered him and ultimately provided the opportunity for his departure.”
“The facts are clear. First, Dela Rosa gained entry into the Senate using Cayetano’s own vehicle. Second, Cayetano’s failure, whether by design or sheer incompetence, to maintain order inside the Senate created the very chaos that Dela Rosa needed to reportedly slip away,” Akbayan President Rafaela David said.
David said Cayetano “disgraced the Senate” and that he is complicit in the continued evasion of justice by a fugitive wanted under an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant. The Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), David said, has become a “humiliating display of weakness and incompetence” for failing to enforce the warrant.
“The PNP and DILG have become a national embarrassment. Their failure to apprehend a fugitive cornered inside the Senate is utterly unacceptable. Either they were asleep at the wheel or their incompetence was by design. In either case, their failure allowed Dela Rosa to continue to evade accountability and continue making a mockery of our laws,” David said.
Separately, David said the exchange of gunfire is “deeply alarming” and “highly suspicious,” and the incident “may have been deliberately staged to manufacture chaos, potentially to mask an attempt by Dela Rosa to escape and/or to pressure the Supreme Court into issuing a temporary restraining order in his favor.” The Makabayan bloc called Dela Rosa’s escape as a “monumental blunder and a grave injustice to the victims of the drug war.”
“The fact that a person wanted by an international tribunal for crimes against humanity could slip out of a heavily secured government institution is a major failure of the Marcos Jr. administration and the Senate leadership, and it is a monumental injustice to the victims and their families,” the bloc, led by ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. Antonio Tinio, Gabriela Rep. Sarah Jane Elago and Kabataan Rep. Renee Louise Co, said.
The Partido Demokratiko Pilipino condemned the attempt of the Marcos administration to “illegally arrest” a ranking member of PDP.
PDP deputy national spokesman Ferdinand Topacio said the ICC warrant “is unenforceable unless confirmed by our domestic court in accordance with the safeguards of the Bill of Rights of the Philippine Constitution and applicable laws, including procedural rules recently promulgated by the Supreme Court.” He added that such brazen acts, “has resulted in tumult, chaos and confusion, not only within the premises of the Upper Chamber, but also in the minds and emotions of many Filipinos who were aghast at seeing the desecration of institutions they hold dear and the appallingly blatant disrespect for their elected officials.”Topacio said that the party is joining the call of Sen. Imee Marcos in urging her brother to cause the preventive suspension of personalities involved in the standoff.
“Those who have gravely abused their authority and trenched upon established Constitutional and statutory rights must be held accountable and properly sanctioned, so that a repetition of such arrogance of power will not be repeated,” Topacio said.
