Legal basis exists for ICC arrest of Sen. Bato – Tamase | Morning Matters

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Let's go to uh the defense of Senator Bato dela Rosa. Well, his camp insists that a foreign or international arrest warrant cannot be enforced without a local court warrant. Attorney, how legally sound is that argument?

[00:00:14]I think the academic consensus on that is that, you know, that is not the case.

[00:00:19]Um both from the perspective of international law as well as domestic law. On the international law perspective, no one has credibly questioned the validity of that ICC warrant. And no one has also denied that the Philippines, despite falling out of the Rome Statute, still has residual obligations in relation to investigations that have already commenced before it uh left the Rome Statute or the ICC Treaty. So, the international law experts in the Philippines and outside have weighed in on this, and the Philippines seems bound by it. That also means that the ICC warrant could be carried out. On the domestic front, the solicitor general made a very good observation in its comment. Um that was submitted to the Supreme Court over the last weekend.

[00:01:03]Where it said that, you know, the validity of the ICC warrant means that the Philippines uh should carry out the arrest or can carry out, rather, the arrest of Senator dela Rosa because of RA 9851. Uh this law which uh was passed by the Philippines or enacted by the Philippines even before we acceded to the Rome Statute. Um which says that uh the Philippines would comply with the surrender of an individual. And it doesn't suggest in RA 9851 that we still needed to go to a court at this point.

[00:01:33]So, both on international and domestic reasons, there seems to be basis for the arrest of Senator dela Rosa even without a judicial proceeding in a Philippine court.