A quote card has gone viral on Facebook with its claim that Interior and Local Government Sec. Jonvic Remulla declared he would deploy 225,000 members of the Manila Police to Mindanao to capture Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa. This is not true.
The post, published on May 30, carried the photo of Remulla alongside an alert layout with the text:
“Handa Kong isugal ang 225K na ka-Pulisan ng Maynila sa Mindanao para Mahuli si Bato Wala akong paki kahit Musang Siya lulusob Kami sa Mindanao
(I’m ready to deploy the 225,000 members of the Manila police force to Mindanao to
arrest Bato. I don’t care if he’s hard to catch like a civet cat. We will storm Mindanao).”
What Remulla said was that the operation to track down and arrest the senator would involve the entire national police force. He made the statement shortly after the Supreme Court denied Dela Rosa’s request for a temporary restraining order against an arrest warrant issued on him by the International Criminal Court.
The 225,000 figure represents the total strength of the Philippine National Police, not just that of Manila.
The PNP said on June 2 that it had prepared a “dedicated, select team” under strict counter-intelligence screening to execute the arrest and ensure that no internal leak compromises the operation.
The false post surfaced amid the ongoing tension between law enforcement agencies and the Senate. Following fugitive Sen. Dela Rosa’s escape from the chamber and the subsequent June 1 Sandiganbayan arrest order for Sen. Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada, partisan social media pages have been actively posting inaccurate information online.
The original post by the page Pro Duterte 101 (created March 14, 2026) has achieved a cumulative reach of 3,011 reactions, 2,168 comments, and 216 shares that are heavily driven by coordinated shares across multiple FB groups.
