THERE is no order from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to former police chief Nicolas Torre III to join the manhunt for Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, Malacañang said on Sunday.
Torre, who served arrest orders against former president Rodrigo Duterte and Kingdom of Jesus Christ founder Apollo Quiboloy, had said he was ready to help in the hunt for dela Rosa, who went into hiding after the International Criminal Court (ICC) confirmed issuing a warrant for his arrest for being an alleged “indirect co-perpetrator” in Duterte’s controversial campaign against drugs.
“For now, there is nothing. I have not been given a message regarding that,” Palace spokesman Claire Castro said during an interview over dzMM.
“I don’t want to preempt the president. But right now, it seems like the PNP (Philippine National Police), NBI (National Bureau of Investigation), and CIDG (Criminal Investigation and Detection Group) have enough forces (to go after dela Rosa),” she said.
Torre, now the general manager of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA), said he would not think twice of taking on the “special assignment” of tracking down his former boss at the PNP should Marcos give the order.
But even without the directive, Torre said he and the whole MMDA would assist in the search for dela Rosa if it fell within the agency’s jurisdiction.
Castro reiterated Marcos’ instruction to all law enforcement agencies to do everything by the book.
She insisted there is enough legal ground for the government to recognize and implement the ICC’s order, contrary to dela Rosa’s argument that only local courts have jurisdiction in his case.
“There is no need to go through the local courts. That’s what Solicitor General (Darlene) Berberabe said. No need to go through the local court. We have RA (Republic Act) 9851. It states what the government’s first option is. It’s clear. It’s an international court that we’re talking about here, not a requesting state. And that’s what we’re saying now; we’re not violating any law. That’s the government’s view,” Castro said.
The same law will be applied in case the ICC also orders the arrest of the other co-conspirators of Duterte, she said.
On Sunday, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said good intelligence work is the key to tracking down and arresting high-profile personalities like dela Rosa linked to crimes against humanity.
Lacson gave the advice to law enforcement agencies that are also going after prominent personalities, including Atong Ang, former Bureau of Corrections chief Gerald Bantag, and resigned party-list representative Zaldy Co.
Ang had been charged with the disappearance and death of at least 26 cockfighting enthusiasts, while Bantag allegedly masterminded the killing of radio broadcaster Percy Lapid.
Co, who is believed to be hiding in France, is facing plunder and graft charges over his alleged involvement in the multibillion-peso flood control budget scandal.
Intelligence is the key to any law enforcement or military operation, Lacson said in a radio interview.
He said that without good intelligence work and proper coordination, law enforcers tasked to arrest high-profile fugitives would be “wasting their resources.”
Lacson, who once served as chief of the Philippine National Police from 1999 to 2001, was dela Rosa’s superior in the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force.
Lacson scored some lawyers for being “manipulative and misleading,” including one who tried to compare his case and that of dela Rosa insofar as evading arrest is concerned.
He said that his situation is different from that of dela Rosa.
“Spot on. Not all lawyers are created equal. Some are learned and updated on jurisprudence; some are dumb and lazy. And yes, some are devious and manipulative with the obvious intent to mislead. All are bound by the code of ethics of the legal profession, though,” Lacson wrote on X.
“There are pretender lawyers; not all lawyers are created equal. Some are learned and study hard, some are dumb and lazy, some are devious and do nothing worthwhile but force their fake ‘knowledge’ on others,” he said in Filipino and English in a radio interview.
Lacson was referring to the claim of one “lawyer” that he had gone into hiding after being the subject of an arrest warrant.
Dela Rosa has been on the run since the International Criminal Court ordered his arrest.
Lacson pointed out that when he went into hiding as a “fugitive from injustice” in the 2010s, he did not break the law, citing the then-applicable jurisprudence (Miranda v. Tuliao) that allowed an accused to seek judicial relief even if he was not under the court’s physical custody.
Lacson was eventually acquitted, and the Supreme Court affirmed the ruling.
But Lacson noted the jurisprudence has since been modified since late 2025, limiting such an option to six months.
