MANILA, Philippines — Five members of the new Senate minority bloc filed a resolution urging fellow Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa to surrender to the proper authorities.
The resolution was filed by ousted Senate president Vicente Sotto III and Sens. Bam Aquino, Risa Hontiveros, Panfilo Lacson, and Francis Pangilinan.
Dela Rosa came out of hiding on Monday after almost six months in hiding after the reported order by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his arrest.
The new Senate leadership under Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano provided Dela Rosa protective custody to prevent the National Bureau of Investigation from serving him the warrant of arrest issued by the ICC.
Dela Rosa had been identified as a co-conspirator of former president Rodrigo Duterte, now detained at The Hague, Netherlands to face crimes against humanity in relation to his bloody war on drugs.
In filing Resolution 395, the senators urged Dela Rosa to "seek judicial remedies in accordance with the Constitution and applicable laws and rules."
They said that the Constitution "provides only limited privilege from arrest for Senators and members of the House of Representatives while Congress is in session, and only for offenses punishable by not more than six years imprisonment, clearly indicating that no blanket immunity or protective custody exists for grave offenses or proceedings authorized under law."
"Neither the Constitution nor the Rules of the Senate contain any provision authorizing the Senate to grant protective custody, institutional refuge, or immunity from lawful arrest or surrender processes pursuant to existing laws, treaties, or international cooperation mechanisms," they said.
The Senate, the senators said, has "historically respected judicial and prosecutorial processes involving its own members and former officials, including the voluntary surrender and judicial submission of late former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, the resort to legal remedies and court proceedings by former Senator and now Congresswoman Leila de Lima, and the judicial recourse undertaken by former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV."
