Sen. Bato cannot shield himself from arrest inside Senate premises — Cayosa

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]So right now, we know that Senator De la Rosa is going to seek refuge in the Senate premises. Can this be done?

[00:00:12]No, you cannot shield yourself from lawful arrest um with a validly issued warrant by a recognized uh court like the ICC.

[00:00:25]Uh because the penalty for the crime for which he's being arrested is more than 6 years and under our constitution and under our revised penal code a senator or a lawmaker enjoys immunity from arrest only while Congress or the Senate is in session and only if the pen impossible penalty for the crime for which he's being arrested is less than three three six six years or less. So hindi applicable ito uh dun sa kaso ni Senator De la Rosa. Well, for one the Senate has issued a resolution allowing this and secondly, um even if it is um a warrant issued by an international court and not a local court, does it still cover that exemption you cited?

[00:01:23]Yes, because uh even if it is so warrant issued by an international court, it is a duly recognized court and even if the Republic of the Philippines during the presidency of uh former President Duterte withdrew from the Rome Statute or from ICC, there's a clear provision in that treaty which the Philippines earlier signed and ratified that uh uh the pending cases or investigations or cases that uh have started a to the withdrawal from the ICC shall continue and ICC remains to have has jurisdiction and the Republic of the Philippines has residual obligation to cooperate with the ICC.

[00:02:13]That's very clear. So Senator Bato Dela Rosa has always cited and his supporters as well that he should be tried in a local court.

[00:02:28]Well, of course everybody would want to say that, but uh during their term in office while they were doing all of these Tokhang, it was very clear that the Republic of the Philippines under the past administration and even the earlier parts of this administration was unwilling or unable to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of these EJKs. And that's the reason why ICC assumed jurisdiction because of the complementary complementarity rule. So, it was pretty obvious that had the Republic of the Philippines seriously investigate or prosecute the perpetrators of the EJK at that time, ICC wouldn't have assumed jurisdiction. Now that it has assumed jurisdiction, everybody still claims "Dapat sa Philippine courts." That's the whole essence of that ICC taking jurisdiction. We failed to respond to the cries for justice of the families of the EJK victims.