{"id":6077,"date":"2026-05-18T23:06:49","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/?p=6077"},"modified":"2026-05-18T23:06:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T22:06:49","slug":"no-mercy-for-bato-berberabe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/?p=6077","title":{"rendered":"No mercy for Bato: Berberabe"},"content":{"rendered":"

\ud83d\udcf7:\u00a0Solicitor General Darlene Berberabe\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

by Diego Morra<\/strong><\/p>\n

Solicitor General Darlene Berberabe\u2019s response to the plea of fugitive Sen. Ronald \u201cBato\u201d de la Rosa on May 11, 2026 to be spared from arrest under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a classic knockout punch.<\/p>\n

In her response to the Bato\u2019s impassioned petition, Berberabe said: \u201cAt its core, this case asks what the rule of law truly means: whether the law exists merely as a shield for the powerful when accountability finally reaches them, or whether it still carries its highest purpose which is the attainment of justice. The law was never intended to provide an excuse for evasion, nor to become a weapon wielded only by those with power. It exists so that even the voiceless dead, whose cries never reached a courtroom, are not forgotten by justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

By rejecting Bato\u2019s argument, Berberabe pointed out that \u201cno amount of technical reasoning can disguise the absence of justice. Our conscience will know. The nation will know. History will know.\u201d He is not an animal more equal than others, and his demand to due process is an absurd argument since his right to due process was adequately protected by the ICC in accordance with the Rome Statute. Berberabe stressed that the issuance of the ICC warrant inherently involves a judicial evaluation and an independent determination by a competent tribunal and satisfies due process requirements.<\/p>\n

She explained that \u201cthe Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC) made an exhaustive review of the Prosecution’s evidence and even went to great lengths to afford petitioner the due process he is entitled to under Article 58 of the Rome Statute.\u201d Furthermore, Berberabe argued that Dela Rosa is not entitled to an injunctive writ to prevent his arrest and surrender, contending that he has failed to demonstrate a clear and unmistakable right requiring immediate protection, a material and substantial invasion of such right, or the urgent necessity of an injunctive writ to prevent serious damage. The government must abide by the ICC order, the Rome Statute and Republic Act No. 9851 and hunt down de la Rosa and his accomplices.<\/p>\n

Berberabe explained that de la Rosa’s evasion of arrest and subsequent departure from the Senate demolishes his bid to be given equitable relief by the Supreme Court (SC.) \u201cDe la Rosa’s conduct simply reveals that he does not come to court with clean hands. Having sheltered from potential arrest for half a year, he surfaced for convenience and immediately sought a TRO (temporary restraining order) to ward off enforcement,\u201d she noted. \u201cA party cannot selectively engage with legal processes based on convenience. Truly, his actions reflect inequitable conduct, which bars the grant of the strong arm of injunction,\u201d Berberabe argued.<\/p>\n

Noting just how lawless de la Rosa is, Berberabe quoted him as saying the following in her brief: \u201cIf someone fights back, they\u2019ll die. If nobody fights back, we\u2019ll make them fight back. Produce blood. Instill fear.\u201d That order, made to lawmen when he was appointed chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) ahead of several PMA classes, is essentially an illegal order that came from Rodrigo Duterte, who hallucinated that criminals and drug users are the fundamental problems of the country. They are not.<\/p>\n

Yet, the Duterte order is now being invoked the way Nazi generals and war criminals invoked the phrase \u201cBefehl ist Befehl,\u201d as defense in the Nuremberg trials. The \u201corder is an order\u201d defense was scuttled during the trials and practically all of the accused were sent to the gallows. Moreover, Berberabe argued that by making himself evaporate from the Senate in November 2025, de la Rosa clearly and deliberately intended to evade arrest and prosecution. By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of the law and must be deemed a fugitive from justice and must not be allowed to seek relief from the courts.<\/p>\n

\u201cSen. de la Rosa\u2019s position is akin to a person demanding the protection of the law while refusing to submit to its most basic commands. The rule of law cannot survive if obedience to legal process becomes optional to the powerful,\u201d Berberabe maintained. The fugitive senator\u2019s plea was mooted when he fled from the Senate in the wee hours of May 14 in the good company of Sen. Robinhood Padilla. Birds of the same feather flock together. #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\ud83d\udcf7:\u00a0Solicitor General Darlene Berberabe\u00a0 by Diego Morra Solicitor General Darlene Berberabe\u2019s response to the plea of fugitive Sen. Ronald \u201cBato\u201d de la Rosa on May 11, 2026 to be spared from arrest under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a classic knockout punch. In her response to the Bato\u2019s impassioned petition, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editoryal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6080,"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077\/revisions\/6080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balitangklik.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}