Gunshots fired inside Philippine Senate building

MANILA, Philippines — A burst of gunfire rang out late Wednesday in the Philippine Senate, sparking chaos in the building where authorities had tried to arrest a senator wanted by the International Criminal Court in connection with a deadly government crackdown on drugs.

No one was hurt, officials said. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. asked the public to stay calm in televised remarks.

It was not immediately clear who fired the shots or why. The gunfire broke out as Philippine authorities tried to arrest Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, a former national police chief who enforced former President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug efforts in which thousands of mostly petty suspects were killed from 2016 to 2018.

Allied senators took dela Rosa into “protective custody” on Monday, when he reappeared after months of absence.

Several senators were still in the building after holding a session when the gunshots were heard by a throng of journalists. Armed security personnel, including military members, ran around with guns ready and later asked employees to leave as tensions started to ease.

Senate President Alan Cayetano briefly appeared before journalists in the Senate shortly after the shots were fired but could not provide details.

“The emotions are high here,” Cayetano said. “This is the Senate of the Philippines, and we are allegedly under attack.”

Interior Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla Jr. later arrived with top police officials and said he was deployed by the president to secure the senators. He said he did not come to arrest dela Rosa, who remained in the building.

An investigation was underway, and security cameras would be reviewed to find out who was behind the gunfire and their intentions, Remulla said.

On Monday, the International Criminal Court unsealed an arrest warrant for dela Rosa.

Originally issued in November, the warrant charges dela Rosa with the crime against humanity of murder of “no less than 32 persons” between July 2016 and the end of April 2018, when he led the national police force under Duterte.

The court had no immediate comment on the events in Manila.

Dela Rosa, 64, has vowed to fight the arrest order. He called on his followers late Wednesday to gather in the Senate to prevent what he said was his impending arrest.

National Bureau of Investigation agents tried to arrest dela Rosa on Monday, but he managed to dash to the Senate’s plenary hall and sought the help of fellow senators. Cayetano said then that he would cite the government agents involved for contempt.

Duterte was arrested in March last year and flown to the International Criminal Court’s headquarters in The Hague. He is still in detention in the Netherlands and faces a trial in the killings from his crackdown, in which dela Rosa has also been accused.

“We should not allow another Filipino to be brought to The Hague, the second one after President Duterte,” dela Rosa said, addressing his followers in a Facebook message and blaming politics for his predicament.

He said he was ready to face any accusations before Philippine courts, but he denied condoning extrajudicial killings when he led the police force. Duterte has also made the same denials, although he openly threatened suspected drug dealers with death while in office.

Five senators called on dela Rosa to surrender to authorities in a proposed resolution, but his allies opposed the move in a heated exchange Wednesday in the Senate, where 13 of 24 senators friendly to dela Rosa wrested control of its leadership on Monday.

Duterte and his daughter, the current vice president, and political allies such as dela Rosa have been the harshest critics of Marcos.

Vice President Sara Duterte, once a political ally of Marcos, has blamed the president for allowing what she said was “the kidnapping” of her father and his handover to a foreign court.

Sara Duterte has recently been impeached by the House of Representatives, which is dominated by the allies of Marcos, over accusations that included unexplained wealth and threats to have the president assassinated if she herself were killed amid their political disputes. The Senate was preparing to convene into a tribunal to try the vice president.

Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the International Criminal Court in 2019 in a move human-rights activists say was aimed at escaping accountability.

The court, however, said that it retained jurisdiction over crimes committed when the Philippines was still a member and successfully moved to have him arrested, the first former Asian leader to face such a measure.

Information for this article was contributed by Mike Corder of The Associated Press.