A YouTube video claims that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest order for Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the national police chief who led the implementation of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs. This is false.
Published on July 18, the thumbnail and title of the spurious video carried this text:
“ARREST ORDER INILABAS NA! NAIYAK SI BATO! BINASAHAN NA NG ICC! KULONG ANG HATOL! KAKAPASOK LANG!”
An anonymous narrator at the beginning of the 39-minute clip stated:
“GRABE PRESIDENT BBM NAGSALITA NA. NAIYAK SI SENATOR BATO. BINASAHAN NA NG ICC”
As of July 21, no warrant of arrest has been issued for Dela Rosa in connection with the previous administration’s drug war. Neither does the official website of the ICC show any statement about it. No credible news reports have confirmed the existence of such an order.
Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin confirmed last July 20 that there has been no ICC warrant for the senator. He added, however, that the Philippines may be obligated to arrest Dela Rosa should the ICC eventually issue one.
“If there should be a warrant, we will probably do the same thing that we did in the case of the former president (Duterte). [The same goes] if the warrant is coursed through the Interpol because we continue to be a member of the Interpol,” Bersamin was quoted to have said in a news report from Inquirer.net.
Duterte was arrested last March 11 on the basis of an ICC warrant coursed through the Interpol and is now at the ICC’s detention facility in The Hague, Netherlands.
The incorrect video featured a clip from the July 18 Palace press briefing, where Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary Claire Castro was asked to comment on Dela Rosa’s claim that talk of his possible arrest is being revived as a “diversionary tactic” to cover up rumors linking First Lady Liza Marcos to the death of businessman Juan Paolo Tantoco. There was no mention of any actual ICC arrest order in the video.
The post surfaced after Bersamin told the Japanese news agency Kyodo News on July 16 that if the ICC were to issue a warrant, Sen. Dela Rosa would receive “treatment similar to what we did to Duterte,” who was arrested and flown to The Hague, Netherlands last March 11 over crimes against humanity.
There were nine individuals identified as co-perpetrators in the bloody war on drugs campaign, according to the warrant of arrest application posted on the ICC website, but their names have been concealed in the document.
As of writing, the video posted by the YouTube channel Boss Balita TV (created July 15, 2021) has garnered 24,000 views, 948 likes and 124 comments.
