For two nights, Ronald dela Rosa was holed up in the Philippine Senate, evading the government agents who were trying to execute an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.
He sought protective custody from his fellow senators. Dressed in a T-shirt, shorts and slippers, he declared that he was not leaving. He sang a song in front of TV cameras to appeal for support from other alumni of the Philippine Military Academy.
On Wednesday evening, while the Senate was in session, gunfire rang out and plunged the building into chaos. Nobody was hurt, but it was not immediately clear who had fired the shots.
A few hours later, at about 2:30 a.m. Thursday, Mr. dela Rosa fled the Senate building in Manila, said Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, who oversees the Philippine police force. He added that Mr. dela Rosa had left in a car with another senator, Robin Padilla, and that federal agents were now searching for Mr. dela Rosa.
The Philippines has been transfixed for days by the drama surrounding Mr. dela Rosa, who was the chief of the national police force under former President Rodrigo Duterte. He is wanted by the I.C.C. for his role in Mr. Duterte’s so-called war on drugs, in which tens of thousands of people are believed to have been killed.
On Monday, Mr. dela Rosa — widely known by the nickname “Bato,” which is Tagalog for rock — arrived at the Senate, making his first public appearance in months. He had seemed to go into hiding in November amid speculation that the I.C.C. had issued a sealed arrest warrant for him. In March of last year, the Philippine authorities executed a warrant issued by the court, which is based in The Hague, for Mr. Duterte, who is now awaiting trial on crimes against humanity. Both men deny the charges.
When Mr. dela Rosa reached the Senate on Monday, he found agents from the National Bureau of Investigation waiting to arrest him. He fled for safety, dashing up stairs and doors, stumbling at one point. Inside the Senate chamber and offices, the security forces did not have the authority to arrest him, his allies argued. That evening, the I.C.C. unsealed the warrant.
The chaos surrounding Mr. dela Rosa’s arrest is the latest chapter in a bitter, long-running feud between two political dynasties, Mr. Duterte’s and that of his successor, President Ferdinand R. Marcos.
Mr. dela Rosa came to the Senate as the House of Representatives was preparing to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte, the daughter of Mr. Duterte. She and Mr. Marcos were once allies but had an acrimonious fallout.
On Monday, Mr. dela Rosa slept in the Senate, which is stacked with Duterte allies. He petitioned the Supreme Court to block the I.C.C. warrant.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court said it would give Mr. Marcos’s government 72 hours to submit its response to Mr. dela Rosa’s petition. After the reports of gunfire at the Senate, Mr. Marcos Jr. released a video in which he said the government had played no role in the chaos. He said he had ordered law enforcement officers to leave — and that they had — after Mr. dela Rosa asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
Mr. Remulla, the interior secretary, said he had yet to receive any order to arrest Mr. dela Rosa. He said he believed Mr. dela Rosa would return to the Senate when it convenes to vote on whether to convict Ms. Duterte. The Senate is next scheduled to meet on May 18.
Jean Encinas-Franco, a professor of political science at the University of the Philippines, expressed dismay about the Senate, which she said was so weak that it could not function as an institution of accountability.
“It was so chaotic, it’s crazy,” she said. “It is just worrisome for the past two or three days, they’ve coddled an international fugitive.” She speculated that the gunfire might have been a diversion to cover for Mr. dela Rosa’s escape.
Senate President Alan Cayetano told reporters on Thursday that Mr. dela Rosa had not been served with a warrant, nor had he been arrested by any authority, so his exit was not an “escape.”
This is not the first time a senator has sought refuge from the authorities in the Senate. In 2018, Antonio Trillanes, a vocal critic of Mr. Duterte’s presidency, was holed up there for weeks before he was arrested.
