Dela Rosa leaves Senate with Padilla

MANILA, Philippines, May 15 ------ Hours after chaos erupted at the Senate as he evaded uniformed armed men supposedly sent to arrest him on Wednesday, Sen. Ronald dela Rosa reportedly managed to slip out of the building at 2:30 a.m. yesterday.

At a press briefing later, Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano confirmed that Dela Rosa had left the Senate building with Sen. Robinhood Padilla. Cayetano said there was nothing wrong with it, and that Senate protective custody of Dela Rosa had ended. “I don’t know if they left together or they both left. I’m just reading to you. I don’t know. I haven’t asked. I haven’t talked to Senator Padilla. But if they did, there’s nothing illegal with it,” Cayetano said.

Cayetano read a text message from Dela Rosa’s wife Nancy apologizing for the bother Dela Rosa’s stay at the Senate had caused. “In behalf of my family, we would like to thank you and all the other Senators for all the support you have done for my husband. At the same time, I’d also like to ask for forgiveness for all the confusion and havoc it has created in the Senate,” Nancy’s text message to Cayetano read.

She reportedly told Cayetano of her husband’s concern that staying longer at the Senate premises would only further burden the Senate, even if he was sure that he would be safe in its custody. Nancy told Cayetano that the last time they talked Dela Rosa told her he would take advantage of the 72-hour period to make a comment on his petition before the Supreme Court to stop the implementation of the International Criminal Court arrest warrant.

She said she was surprised to learn that he had slipped out of the Senate, and that he might have taken advantage of the melee caused by the shooting to escape. Cayetano said he did not share the wife’s view that Dela Rosa “escaped” when he “left” the Senate building.

Source: philstar.com