MANILA: Multiple gunshots sent Philippine senators into hiding in their offices late Wednesday, as a legislator wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) has sought refuge in the building.
There were no casualties and the search for the gunmen was ongoing, Interior Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla told reporters, adding that fugitive Senator Ronald Dela Rosa remained inside the building.
Journalists in the senate said they heard at least five gunshots.
The dramatic scene unfolded as Dela Rosa — ex-president Rodrigo Duterte’s top enforcer during his bloody drug war — holed up in the senate complex to dodge arrest and transfer to the Netherlands over alleged crimes against humanity.
The interior secretary said Dela Rosa “is safe. He is with security personnel. He has been informed of our activities. We have assured him that there is no warrant of arrest to be served.”
President Ferdinand Marcos said government forces inside and around the senate complex did not fire their guns. He said agents trying to arrest Dela Rosa had been instructed to stand down after the Supreme Court ordered the government earlier on Wednesday to explain its actions.
“The thing to do now is to tell all our people to calm down and we will get to the bottom of this. We will determine who is behind this trouble,” Marcos said in an address on state television.
Dela Rosa had earlier asked the Supreme Court to stop the authorities from arresting and handing him over to the ICC.
Known as “Bato”, Dela Rosa served as national police chief from 2016 to 2018 during the early phase of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign. Duterte was arrested in March last year, flown to the Netherlands on the same day, and is detained in The Hague awaiting trial.
Dela Rosa had not been seen publicly since November before emerging on Monday to take part in an unexpected vote that helped Duterte loyalists capture control of the senate.
Minutes before the gunfire, Senator Vicente Sotto said in a statement that protesters threw water bottles at his car as he drove alone out of the senate complex.
Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, who had stopped government agents from arresting his ally, said on his official Facebook page he did not know who had fired the shots.
“We heard gunshots and we don’t know what is happening. Everyone’s locked in their rooms now. We cannot go out, we cannot secure our other staff,” he added.
“Why are we under attack here?” Melvin Matibag, director of the National Bureau of Investigation whose agents had attempted to arrest Dela Rosa at the senate on Monday, denied that his officers had fired their guns. “We were on a stand down,” he told ABS-CBN network in an interview, adding there were no NBI agents inside the senate when the shooting occurred.
Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2026