‘We’re in the middle of a shootout’: Gunfire breaks out at Senate building where politician is holed up

Singapore: Gunfire broke out in the Philippines’ Senate on Wednesday, setting off pandemonium inside the building and compelling the chamber’s sheltering president to warn people to turn off the lights and stay low.

Details remain scarce, but the confrontation comes days after the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) failed in its attempt to arrest Ronald Dela Rosa, a high-profile senator accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of historical crimes.

Dela Rosa has been holed up in the protective custody of the senate, which is led by an ally, since the ICC unsealed its arrest warrant against him on Monday.

The gunfire on Wednesday erupted shortly before 8pm local time (10pm AEST). Footage from journalists inside the buildings captured the sounds of rapid, close-range gunfire and screaming members of the press. Reuters reported more than a dozen shots rang out at the Senate as those inside scrambled for cover.

“It’s f—ed up man – we were in the middle of a shootout,” one of the journalists at the scene told this masthead.

More footage shows heavily armed members of the military entering the building to take control of the situation.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Senate Secretary Mark Llandro Mendoza said people he believed to be agents of the NBI had attempted to enter the Senate and fired shots as they retreated. But NBI Director Melvin Matibag told GMA News that no agents were there.

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr called for calm and said government forces were not responsible.

“It was not the government that did this,” Marcos said in a statement broadcast on his Facebook account. “There was no instruction to arrest Senator Bato,” he said, referring to Dela Rosa by his nickname, which means rock in Tagalog.

Dela Rosa was once the chief of police for former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, who was arrested in March last year and sent to the Netherlands to face charges in The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity stemming from his brutal “war on drugs”.

The ICC has now accused Dela Rosa as being one of its architects. Extraordinary CCTV footage from the complex on Monday showed Dela Rosa and staff running through hallways and up fire escapes to escape the arresting NBI officers.

Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, who had just been elected with the help of Dela Rosa, said at the time that his colleague was safe in the building and would not be given up.

On Wednesday night, Cayetano took to Facebook as events unfolded, saying “This is the Senate of the Philippines. We are allegedly under attack … turn off the lights, stay low … follow the protocols.”

As the situation cooled, he posted to social media again to say Dela Rosa was safe and that authorities would respect the Supreme Court’s order from earlier in the day giving the sides three days to comment on the merits of the senator’s arrest.

“The thing to do now is to tell our people all to calm down and we will get to the bottom of this,” Marcos said, adding that both the Senate and the police would investigate who was behind the attack and whether destabilisation of the government was a motive.

In a feverish week of politics in Manila, Vice President Sara Duterte, the daughter of Rodrigo, was impeached again in the lower house on the same day officers tried to arrest Dela Rosa.

She is accused, among other things, of misusing public funds and stating in 2024 that she had hired a contractor to kill Marcos Jr if she herself was assassinated.

If convicted in the Senate, which is weighted with loyalists to her family, she would be removed from office and potentially barred from running for president in 2028.

With Bloomberg, Reuters

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