Gunfire breaks out in Philippines Senate building, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr calls for calm
Singapore: Gunshots broke out in the Philippine Senate on Wednesday, causing chaos inside the building and forcing the chamber’s housing chairman to warn people to turn off the lights and keep a low profile.
Details are still scarce, but the confrontation comes just days after the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) failed in its attempt to arrest Ronald Dela Rosa, a high-profile senator accused of historic crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Dela Rosa has been in the protective custody of the senate, led by an ally, since the ICC issued an arrest warrant against him on Monday.
The gunfire erupted shortly before 20:00 local time (22:00 AEST) on Wednesday. Footage taken by journalists inside the buildings includes rapid, close-range gunshots and screams of members of the press.
“Everything is terrible, man, we were in the middle of a conflict,” one of the journalists told this imprint.
More footage shows heavily armed military members entering the building to take control of the situation.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. He called for calm and said government forces were not responsible.
Dela Rosa was once the police chief of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who was arrested in March last year and sent to the Netherlands to face charges at the Hague for alleged crimes against humanity stemming from his brutal “war on drugs”.
The ICC now accuses Dela Rosa, known as Bato, which means rock in Tagalog, of being one of its architects.
Extraordinary CCTV footage of the complex on Monday showed Dela Rosa and staff running through corridors and fire escapes to evade arresting NBI officers.
Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, newly elected with Dela Rosa’s help, said at the time that his colleague was safe in the building and would not be given up.
As events unfolded Wednesday night, Cayetano said on Facebook: “This is the Senate of the Philippines. We are allegedly under attack… turn off the lights, keep a low profile… follow protocols.”
When the situation cooled, he posted again on social media to say that Dela Rosa was safe in the building and that authorities would respect the Supreme Court’s decision earlier in the day giving the parties three days to comment on the merits of the senator’s detention.
In a heated week of politics in Manila, Vice President Sara Duterte, Rodrigo’s daughter, was impeached again in the lower house on the same day officers tried to arrest Dela Rosa.
He is accused of, among other things, misusing public funds and stating that he hired a contractor to kill Marcos Jr. if he were assassinated in 2024.
If convicted in the Senate, which is dominated by family loyalists, he would be removed from office and potentially barred from running for president in 2028.
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Zach Hope is a Southeast Asia correspondent. He is a former reporter for the Brisbane Times.Connect via email.
