Video Shows Philippine Senator Outrunning Agents and Avoiding I.C.C. Warrant

The federal agents were waiting at the Philippine Senate to serve an arrest warrant. Their target was a lawmaker.

But the lawmaker ran, and the agents gave chase. He dashed up flights of stairs and through doors, stumbling at one point. A couple of minutes later, he was in the safety of the Senate chamber, where the would-be arresting officers had no authority.

This extraordinary scene was captured on CCTV and shown during a plenary session of the Senate on Monday. The senator in question was Ronald dela Rosa, who was the chief enforcer in former President Rodrigo Duterte’s devastating antidrug campaign. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity, the same charge that it arrested Mr. Duterte for last year.

For now, Mr. dela Rosa, 64 — whose nickname is “Bato,” or rock in Tagalog — is holed up in the Senate.

“I am well rested and have already recovered from the adrenaline rush yesterday,” he said in a text message on Tuesday. “The next steps are to exhaust all legal remedies. We are already filing all the necessary petitions.”

Mr. dela Rosa’s lawyers are petitioning the Supreme Court to invalidate the warrant. The I.C.C. has accused him of being responsible, along with Mr. Duterte and others, of multiple killings when he was Davao City’s police director and later chief of the Philippine National Police. He has previously denied the charges.

For months, Mr. dela Rosa had not appeared in public, amid speculation that the I.C.C. had issued a warrant for him. He arrived at the Senate on Monday, as the latest episode of the acrimonious rivalry between President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte, the daughter of Rodrigo Duterte, unfolded.

On Monday evening, the House of Representatives impeached Ms. Duterte again. But by then, an ally of Ms. Duterte had been elected as the new Senate president, making Ms. Duterte’s prosecution on impeachment charges almost certain to fail, as did her first impeachment.

Mr. Marcos and Ms. Duterte, both scions of powerful political families, formed a partnership ahead of the general election in 2022. But their alliance quickly frayed and hit rock bottom after Mr. Marcos complied with an I.C.C. warrant for Mr. Duterte last March.

The warrant for Mr. dela Rosa was issued by the I.C.C. in November, but was unsealed on Monday. He has argued, like Mr. Duterte has, that the I.C.C. has no jurisdiction in the Philippines because Mr. Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the treaty that created the court.

Still, Mr. dela Rosa has publicly said that he was willing to be arrested and join Mr. Duterte in prison. On Monday, he sought protective custody from the Senate, which granted his request.

“Senator Bato will enjoy the protection of the law and the protection of the Senate in accordance with our rules and Philippine laws,” said the new Senate president, Alan Cayetano.