By Carlito Pablo
He has arrested no less than former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte and the ex-leader’s spiritual adviser, Apollo Quiboloy.
If ordered, police general Nicolas Torre III is ready to slap the cuffs on Duterte’s drug war enforcer and now senator, Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa.
“If there’s another order that will tell me to do something, I will comply with it,” Torre said in an exclusive interview with the Manila Times.
The former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief’s remarks followed reports that International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a warrant of arrest against Dela Rosa.
“The answer there is yes, I will do it if I have an order, no matter what order is released, because I am a professional police officer,” Torre said in Filipino and English in the Manila Times report published on November 19, 2025.
Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla revealed on November 8 that the ICC has issued a warrant of arrest against Dela Rosa, who served as police chief to Duterte when the latter was mayor of Davao City and president of the Philippines.
As a top-ranking police officer, Dela Rosa played a key role in Duterte’s bloody war against drugs during his time as city mayor and president of the country.
On March 11, 2025, Torre arrested Duterte at the Manila international airport based on an ICC arrest warrant.
The former president was handed over to the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands on March 12.
In September 2024, Torre arrested Quiboloy, a close friend of and spiritual adviser to Duterte, on criminal charges, including sex trafficking.
On November 18, the Supreme Court denied the “very urgent” motion filed by Dela Rosa to compel Remulla to submit a copy of the supposed arrest warrant issued by the ICC.
However, the high ordered the government to comment on Dela Rosa’s manifestation seeking written certifications confirming whether an ICC warrant has been received, transmitted or processed through official channels.
Dela Rosa filed the manifestation on November 13, 2025 after Remulla revealed that he has it “on good authority” that the ICC has issued a warrant of arrest.
Responding to media questions about the Supreme Court decision, Remulla on November 19 insisted on the existence of the warrant.
Asked if the warrant would soon be served, Remulla told reporters: “Abangan (Let’s watch out). Be patient, everything is a process.”
The ICC has charged Duterte and several still unnamed co-perpetrators with crimes against humanity in connection with the ex-leader’s war on drugs.
A report by the South China Morning Post quoted Arjan Aguirre, an assistant professor of political science at Ateneo de Manila University, saying that the potential arrest of Dela Rosa will “not
be the end in the series of ICC-related arrests”.
“The ICC will most likely call on other figures,” Aguirre said.
The same news report also quoted Cleve Arguelles, president of opinion research firm WR Numero, who noted that Dela Rosa is “now operating under the cloud of an imminent arrest”.
“More broadly, it may heighten anxiety among Duterte allies who fear that the legal reckoning, long delayed, may finally be materialising,” Arguelles said in the South China Morning Post report.
Torre was relieved as PNP chief in August this year. He is awaiting a reassignment.
Dela Rosa once dared former senator Antonio Trillanes to personally arrest him if the ICC issues a warrant.
Following Duterte’s arrest in March this year, Dela Rosa also said that he is prepared to be arrested.
“I am ready to join the old man hoping that they would allow me to take care of him,” Dela Rosa said about Duterte, who is detained at an ICC facility in the Netherlands.
Dela Rosa has been absent from the Senate since the chamber resumed session on November 11.
Duterte has refused to recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC and he is seeking release from detention.
Duterte was president when the Philippines in 2019 withdrew from the Rome Statute, the international treaty that created the ICC.
Duterte’s legal team on November 14, 2025 filed a request before the ICC appeals chamber to terminate all ongoing proceedings against the former president.
The appeals brief document challenges the October 23, 2025, decision by ICC pre-trial chamber, which had ruled that the ICC has jurisdiction over the ex-Philippine leader.
ReyFort Media 
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