Ronald de la Rosa, whom Rodrigo Duterte named his top cop over the heads of hundreds of his seniors and for whom he campaigned without let-up to occupy a seat at the Senate, is one living proof that the dumb and the damned have a secure place in the unlamented regime. Just like the grossly underqualified Bong Go, Bato should be kicked out by millions of voters who have woken up from slumber and recovered their suspended rationality.
Aside from his senseless rhetoric at the Senate, de la Rosa has again showed he is no different from Duterte Sr. for spinning stories, like the one he dished out in Sogod, Southern Leyte, when he manufactured the yarn that the case against his lord and savior was initiated by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA). Bato, true to his ugly nickname, is as dumb as a rock, with apologies to the rock. Reporting on Bato’s stump in the Cebuano-speaking town, veteran Senate scribe Hannah Torregoza wrote that the CPP and NPA were pursuing the criminal cases against Duterte before the International Criminal Court (ICC). She added: “De la Rosa claimed the CPP-NPA has been pushing for Duterte’s prosecution overseas because the members of international body have no idea of what is happening in the Philippines.”
To add more fiction to his spiel, Torregoza quoted Bato as saying: “Gusto nila sa ICC kasi yung mga tao dun, walang alam sa nangyayari sa Pilipinas kaya madali nilang maloko dahil ang nasa likod ng pagsasampa ng kaso ngayon ay yung mga NPA, mga CPP-NPA na galit (They want him prosecuted before the ICC because the people there don’t know what’s happening in the Philippines, so they can easily be fooled because the ones behind the filing of the case now are the NPA, the CPP-NPA who are angry.)” He added: “Galit talaga sa pagkakapresidente ni Digong dahil nawala ang kanilang mga puwersa. Galit na galit kaya gusto nilang gumanti (They were really angry with Digong’s presidency because they lost their forces. They are so angry that they want to retaliate.)”
Belying de la Rosa’s claim, the CPP told the Duterte loyalist to just “shut up” and stop blaming the revolutionary forces for the arrest of Duterte by the ICC and his detention in the Scheveningen prison in The Hague, where he can be subjected to medical examinations and psychiatric tests to determine his fitness to stand trial. CPP noted that the more than 30,000 victims of Duterte’s “war on drugs” had legions of relatives and friends. Government figures showed that more than 6,600 people were killed by Duterte hitmen from 2016 to 2022. Moreover, the first cases for Duterte’s bloody rampage were filed in 2017 by the Magdalo, a group of ex-military officers, while human rights advocates, including nuns, priests, Protestant ministers, lawyers and ordinary citizens, documented the murders, with the information gathered forming bulk of the evidence filed with the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC. De la Rosa is a poor storyteller and it is strange how he became chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP.) Under his watch, a South Korean businessman was murdered right inside Camp Crame but he was not sacked by his lord and savior.
CPP explained that it is typical of those in the Duterte camp to blame others for their misdeeds as it noted that Bato, like Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio, must be suffering from “folie à deux,” which translates to “madness for two” and describes a psychiatric condition where two people, usually in a close relationship, share the same delusions. From Duterte Sr. to Duterte Jr. to Bato is an unbroken line of contagious anti-social narcissistic personality disorder, with none of them admitting responsibility for anything (“shit happens,” according to Bato), and all of them experts in projection, deflection and coercion. Stranger still, Duterte Sr. even claimed that Carl Arnaiz, one of the many victims of the “drug war” who was on leave from the University of the Philippines Diliman (UP Diliman), was his relative. Arnaiz was snatched with Reynaldo “Kulot” de Guzman, a minor, and both were killed by policemen. Former PO1 Jeffrey Perez has convicted of the murders and the decision was upheld by the Court of Appeals (CA.) Another relative was a certain Maj. Duterte assigned to the Northern Police District (NPD).
CPP described de la Rosa as a broken record by tagging the CPP, NPA, and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) for Duterte’s detention at the Scheveningen prison. The party noted that Bato is actually prefiguring his arrest by the ICC for his indispensable role as the implementor of the first edition of the “tokhang” murder frenzy. Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio may as well join Bato since the OTP is still analyzing her significant role in the murders in Davao City when she was mayor. Members of a murderous political dynasty deserve their just desserts in the comfortable lodgings in The Hague. Needless to say, de la Rosa will be blaming the CPP in case a warrant for his arrest is issued. “Bato is blaming everyone, except himself and his boss (Duterte),” CPP noted.
The credit for the arrest of Duterte Sr. should go to the thousands of people who painstakingly collected all the evidence against the incarcerated ex-president, from a recently-deceased priest who talked with the relatives of the victims in Davao City to the lawyers and human rights advocates who touched base with thousands of families whose members were gunned down mercilessly and to the journalists whose coverage set the stage for deeper inquiry into the lawless operations encouraged, funded and defended by Duterte Sr. and his minions. “It is in Bato’s rotten character to lie to the people and cover up on his criminal record as police general,” CPP said. “He said the CPP and the NPA are already weak, yet he still blames us as orchestrators of events in the country,” the party added. The mountain of evidence against the Duterte hitmen is there for de la Rosa to read and assess. There is no use for him to evade the facts, for these facts will be the ones that will shackle him.
The CPP was elated that Duterte Sr. was arrested on March 11, 2025 and bundled off to The Hague to face the ICC, the very same court he had maligned for years and accused of machinations against him. Bato is scared stiff that he will be unmasked by ICC prosecutors who have proof that he willingly supported the murders of civilians who were never sought on drug charges and who never had their day in court. The depravity of the Duterte regime and its mendacity will now haunt all of them, including Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio, while more and more cases are being prepared to cover their counterinsurgency operations that killed possibly thousands more after Duterte organized the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) under Executive Order No, 70 and deployed thousands of troops to attack rural communities under Memorandum Circular No. 32 in 2018. (DIEGO MORRA)
