By: Tita C. Valderama -
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- The Philippine Senate, long considered the last bastion of democracy, turned into a combat zone Wednesday night when gunfire erupted through its halls amid the unsealed International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant against Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa and the looming impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.
The chaos marked the climax of a slow-burning constitutional crisis between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., 68, and Duterte, 47, whose once-dominant 2022 UniTeam alliance has fully collapsed, triggering two seismic legal battles.
The week’s political drama began with a surgical strike on Senate leadership. On May 11, senators ousted Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, 77, and installed Alan Peter Cayetano, 55, a staunch ally of former president Rodrigo Duterte.
Dela Rosa, 64, has been named an indirect co-perpetrator and co-conspirator in the ICC case against Rodrigo Duterte, 81, who has been detained at Scheveningen Prison in The Hague since March 12, 2025, while awaiting trial for crimes against humanity linked to killings during his bloody war on drugs. Dela Rosa went into hiding in November 2025 after reports surfaced that the ICC had issued a warrant for his arrest. He resurfaced Monday after six months in hiding to help Cayetano secure the Senate presidency with 13 votes.
Monday’s leadership shake-up was merely the prelude. Forty-eight hours later, what began as a legislative standoff transformed the Senate into both fortress and stage. The line between parliamentary immunity and institutional sanctuary appeared to vanish, exposing a raw struggle for political survival that has reshaped the road to the 2028 presidential election.
Amid the May 13 turmoil, the House of Representatives formally transmitted the Articles of Impeachment against Sara Duterte to the Senate. The House had voted 257-25, with nine abstentions, to impeach her on May 11 — the same day Duterte allies secured Cayetano’s election as Senate president. Duterte thus became the first Philippine official impeached twice within 15 months, although the Supreme Court voided the first impeachment in February 2025 on technical grounds.
Despite allegations of incompetence, corruption, and erratic public behavior, Sara Duterte has long been viewed as a formidable contender for the 2028 presidency. But that aura of inevitability now appears to be fading, with recent surveys suggesting her numbers have plateaued while rivals gain ground.
The Senate leadership change was widely viewed as a tactical maneuver by Duterte allies to control the impeachment trial and potentially derail proceedings that could expose allegations of corruption, misuse of confidential funds, unexplained wealth, and threats against President Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former House speaker Martin Romualdez. Evidence presented during House justice committee hearings included bank transactions involving P6.7 billion allegedly tied to questionable sources, including suspected drug lords. A conviction by the impeachment court would permanently disqualify Duterte from public office. Gunfire in the chamber The crisis turned violent when Dela Rosa, seeking protective custody inside the six-story Senate building to avoid arrest, became the center of a murky armed confrontation. Television footage and social media videos showed unusual movements by Senate security personnel from the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms (OSAA), alongside police officers and Marines stationed inside the complex.
OSAA acting head, retired police major general Mao Aplasca, told reporters some personnel were armed because “they were going to arrest somebody,” though he did not elaborate amid confusion over the possible serving of the arrest warrant against Dela Rosa. Earlier reports claimed unidentified armed men were attempting to breach the premises.
The confusion stemmed from a jurisdictional clash near the second-floor plywood barrier separating the Senate’s rented wing from the GSIS main building.
Tensions exploded at 7:46 p.m. when gunshots rang out, sending journalists and employees scrambling for cover. Duterte-allied senators, including Senator Imee Marcos, were reportedly meeting elsewhere in the building while awaiting the formal transmittal of the impeachment articles. For hours, reporters and staff were trapped inside offices as armed security personnel patrolled the hallways.
Cayetano later went on Facebook Live, claiming the Senate was “allegedly under attack” and saying four senators had been warned in advance of possible violence. Some lawmakers accused the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) of mounting an assault.
President Marcos later clarified that no NBI agents had been sent to arrest Dela Rosa and denied any government operation targeting the senator.
Initial investigations indicated that OSAA chief Aplasca fired the first shots at NBI agents stationed on the GSIS side for “peace and order,” prompting return fire from an NBI “volunteer.” NBI Director Melvin Matibag later identified the gunman as Mel Oragon, a civilian volunteer and driver accompanying NBI agents that night.
Matibag said the NBI deployment had been requested by GSIS President and General Manager Jose Arnulfo Veloso. He also addressed viral footage showing NBI personnel drilling through a door, clarifying that the operation was meant to seal access points between the Senate and GSIS buildings after concerns about unauthorized entry through a connecting bridge. The Senate-side key to the door was reportedly controlled by the OSAA. The “Great Escape” The most surreal development came before dawn on May 14. Despite the heavily secured Senate compound, Dela Rosa vanished. Cayetano later confirmed the senator had “chosen to leave” Senate protective custody.
According to Senate secretariat officials, Dela Rosa slipped out around 2:30 a.m. alongside Senator Robinhood Padilla. His whereabouts remain unknown. Padilla was later spotted at the airport around 4 a.m., reportedly without Dela Rosa.
Many observers see the May 13 chaos as a calculated delaying tactic. By shielding Dela Rosa, Duterte-allied senators signaled a willingness to use institutional and procedural tools to stall Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial. As long as the Senate remains consumed by security disputes and jurisdictional conflict, the impeachment calendar remains frozen.
What unfolded was more than a security breach. It was a physical manifestation of constitutional breakdown. The crisis is no longer only about accountability for the drug war or the impeachment of a vice president. It is about whether the Philippines can uphold the rule of law when its most powerful figures choose barricades over courtrooms.
The Senate’s decision to shelter a member facing crimes against humanity charges — only to allow him to disappear during a security lapse — reinforced the growing perception that in the Philippines, the law has become a matter of geography.
Former Senate president Franklin Drilon said the gunfire inside the Senate exposed a broader collapse of leadership and respect for the rule of law.
“This is a collective failure of leadership. I do not know where we have gone wrong,” Drilon said. “Why are we facing this situation where we do not respect anything, we do not respect the law? … It’s a shame already, it’s embarrassing for all of us.”
Some political pundits blamed Marcos for weak leadership, arguing he should have ordered Dela Rosa’s immediate arrest and surrender to the ICC, as the government did with Rodrigo Duterte in March 2025.
If Duterte’s allies succeed in derailing Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial through these “sanctuary” tactics, she could enter 2028 as a political martyr. Conversely, the Marcos administration risks appearing incapable of enforcing the law even within the nation’s capital.
As the country looks toward 2028, the defining question may no longer be who has the strongest platform, but who controls the strongest fortress — and the best escape route. The chaos of May 13 did not merely delay a trial; it shattered public faith in the scales of Philippine justice.