There is a very good reason for Ronald de la Rosa to be scared since the testimony of his former boss, the unlamented ex-president Rodrigo Duterte pointed to him and other Philippine National Police (PNP) chiefs in attendance during a Senate hearing as being leaders of his death squads. By doing so, Duterte implicated all of them in the bloody operations of the Duterte Death Squad (DDS) and the Operations Tokhang and Double Barrel.
During the same hearing, Duterte tried to disown his direct orders for drug users and dealers to be killed, telling the chamber that his instruction was for the police to “encourage” the suspects to fight back with their rusty paltik revolvers to give the cops the excuse to gun them down. This revelation gobsmacked the senators who failed to understand that Duterte’s disclosure was nothing due since he had been engaged in scenario building and fabrication of evidence from the time when he was a fiscal in Davao City and earned the loyalty of some of the accused that mysteriously got acquitted, thanks to manufactured evidence.
De la Rosa was in the chamber when Duterte made the statement and was visibly uncomfortable with the disclosure even as he attempted to reduce the remark as another joke from the ex-president’s bag of sick jokes. Some of those acquitted due to the manufactured evidence became beholden to Duterte and professed loyalty to him after being sprung from jail. Through deceit and threats, Duterte managed to create a base of credulous folk even as Davao City politicians assailed him for his doubletalk and, in some instances, blackmail. The late Gen. Ramon Montano was forced to strip Duterte of his bodyguards when reports filtered to Manila that the newly minted politician was using his security men to harass political rivals. The Duterte of the late 1980s did not progress but instead deteriorated as he built a political dynasty, bamboozled his rivals and made hay as the sun shone.
With his career tied up with Duterte, de la Rosa practically aped the style of his boss, showing his fawning servility to him as a police officer copying his cursing and sick jokes, and exhibiting his violent tendencies, to the delight of his master. When Duterte took power in 2016, de la Rosa was immediately named PNP director general, jumping over the heads of his seniors, who were thus retired, as he was the most reliable enforcer of Duterte, whose most deadly campaign promise was to turn the waters of Manila Bay red with the blood of criminals, whom he vowed to wipe out in six months. In fact, de la Rosa threatened to kill policemen who would disobey his orders, segueing into Duterte’s shtick in front of thousands of assembled law enforcers. Bad habits die hard, and de la Rosa suffered a double slap on his face.
Six months later after donning four stars, de la Rosa would be stunned by a gruesome murder committed inside a Ford Explorer within Camp Crame, which was supposed to be his castle and his word was the law. The killer was a lowly cop, and the victim, South Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo. It was an opportune moment for de la Rosa to redeem his promise to kill erring policemen, as he had declared in Camp Crame but he balked, saying he could not do it even if he was dying of shame because of the slaying. De la Rosa was reduced to amusing the public with his mea culpa, saying he was, like Golem, melting with shame. The killer, SPO3 Ricky Sta. Isabel, and an NBI runner, Jerry Omlang, were convicted of the crime in 2023 but Supt. Rafael Dumlao was acquitted. Upon appeal, Dumlao’s RTC acquittal was reversed by the Court of Appeals (CA) and he was slapped with a life sentence. De la Rosa failed to punish the convicted criminals.
Now, this de la Rosa is running for reelection at the Senate along with Bong Go, Duterte’s valet, the one who buys LPG tanks in the middle of the night for Honeylet Avancena and who holds all the medical prescriptions for Duterte, including the proper dosage for the painkiller fentanyl. De la Rosa apparently learned a lot from Duterte as he was caught inserting a provision into a law that would allow firemen to brandish firearms instead of fire hoses. Another source of shame to be exact but still a piece of evidence that those who cut corners, manufacture evidence, and kill their Filipino like chicken for “tinola” and who profit from perks, pork barrels and other sinecures as elected officials gravitate around their god, Duterte. His performance at the Senate is characterized by his fawning servility to Duterte, from pushing the revival of the despised Reserved Officers Training Course (ROTC) down to the high school level to the institutionalization of Red-tagging by the Duterte version of McCarthyism via the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC.)
In 2022, when the Duterte camp was plagued with the problem of continuity, the unlamented ex-president pushed the candidacy of his surrogate Bong Go as president, sending a certified political featherweight into the heavyweight division while his daughter, was recruited to play second fiddle to Marcos Jr., running for vice president tax- and duty-free, all expenses paid by the ghosts of the Marcos Estate. But didn’t the Marcoses also partly finance the Duterte presidential campaign in 2016? The Dutertes have become a “suki” to the Marcoses even if the autocratic patriarch dreaded the possibility of the Marcoses holding on to Malacanang for three successive terms. In a bid to foil the Marcos play, de la Rosa was thrust into the limelight as PDP presidential timber for 2022, only to retreat when Sara became the joint venture partner of Marcos Jr.
De la Rosa is scared stiff by the possibility that he may yet be arrested by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to join the lonely Duterte at the Scheveningen prison in The Hague and has asked the Senate to protect him despite all his protestations, or affirmations, that he is ready to join his boss in prison. His courage has melted away like the bravery of ex-PNP chief Oscar Albayalde and the others who may yet be indicted in the crimes against humanity case of Duterte, now docketed as “Case No. ICC-01/21-01/25, Prosecutor vs Rodrigo Roa Duterte. Given the thin legislative record of de la Rosa and his proclivity to debate with student activists and advance his puerile arguments, the Filipino electorate has a solemn duty in the May 2025 election: Reject de la Rosa! Reelecting him is akin to a voter smashing his head with a rock. (DIEGO MORRA)
