Philippine senator vows to fight International Criminal Court order to arrest him over killings

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Philippine senator said Tuesday he will fight any attempt to send him to the International Criminal Court for prosecution on an alleged crime against humanity, adding he never condoned extrajudicial killings when he led the country's police force.

On Monday, the global tribunal in The Hague unsealed an arrest warrant for Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, a former national police chief who first enforced then- President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drugs crackdowns in which thousands of mostly petty suspects were killed.

Originally issued in November, the warrant charges dela Rosa with the crime against humanity of murder of “no less than 32 persons” between July 2016 and the end of April 2018 in the Philippines.

“If I have something to answer for, I will face those in our local courts and not before foreigners,” dela Rosa told reporters in the Senate, which took him into “protective custody” Monday when he reappeared after months of absence.

“I will avail of all legal processes,” he said, and pleaded to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.: “Don’t bring me to The Hague.”

After winning the presidency in 2016, Duterte designated dela Rosa, a loyal ally, as head of the national police force, which enforced the brutal campaign against illegal drugs.

Dela Rosa also once headed the police force in the southern city of Davao, where Duterte was a longtime mayor and built a political name for his extra tough approach to crimes.

“My role was to lead the war on drugs, and that war on drugs was not meant to annihilate people,” dela Rosa said when he was asked about the huge death toll.

“When the lives of police officers came under threat, of course they needed to defend themselves,” dela Rosa said.

Duterte’s six-year term ended in mid-2022. He was arrested last year and detained by the ICC in the Netherlands, where he is awaiting trial for alleged crimes against humanity in connection with several killings under his crackdowns.

Duterte withdrew the Philippines in 2019 from the ICC, in a move human rights activists say was aimed at escaping accountability. The court, however, said it retained jurisdiction over crimes committed when the Philippines was still a member.

Asked if the Philippines will enforce the ICC’s arrest warrant against dela Rosa, officials suggested they were ready and could surrender him to the global court’s jurisdiction like Duterte under a Philippine law enacted to address crimes against humanity like genocide.

“We have an obligation that all those who should be held to account should be held responsible,” Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said in a news briefing.

Dela Rosa cannot invoke a privilege of immunity from arrest while attending formal sessions or staying within the Senate because the crimes he allegedly committed were serious and punishable by a long prison term, Castro said.

Police have deployed nearly 350 law enforcers outside the Senate, sparking concerns from dela Rosa and allied senators, but officials said they were assigned to keep order and not to eventually help arrest the senator.

A supporter of former Senator Ronald dela Rosa and Vice President Sara Duterte gestures as they hold a rally outside the Philippine Senate in Pasay, Philippines on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Policemen secure the perimeter of the Philippine Senate as supporters of Senator Ronald dela Rosa and Vice President Sara Duterte hold rallies in Pasay, Philippines on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa becomes emotional while talking with other senators before the start of the session at the Philippine Senate in Pasay, Philippines on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa listens to reporters as he responds to questions about his unsealed ICC warrant of arrest at the Philippine Senate in Pasay, Philippines on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa speaks to reporters at the Philippine Senate in Pasay, Philippines on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of building construction projects are underway in New York on any given day. The deadly collapse of a building next to one of those work sites has raised questions about the city's oversight and the safety precautions taken by contractors.

While the investigation is ongoing, some New York officials on Friday called for the hiring of more inspectors by the city's Department of Buildings. The probe, meanwhile, is likely to focus not only on the building that fell but on an adjacent excavation site and its contractors, who had faced previous lawsuits and complaints.

Eight people were killed Wednesday when the three-story structure containing residential and commercial units in Brooklyn collapsed. It fell into a pit dug by workers excavating the site of another building that was recently demolished. Neighbors had reported feeling vibrations from the construction site, and at least one witness saw bricks falling from the building just moments before it collapsed.

Though it remains unclear how often the excavation site had been inspected, some city officials said Friday that more help is needed.

The Department of Buildings has a vacancy rate of around 9% — 168 of its 1,855 authorized positions — according to the city’s comptroller dashboard.

“We must, and we will, ensure that every single one of those positions is immediately filled,” said New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, a Democrat. “This is an unspeakable, horrendous tragedy, and we must meet this moment.”

Democratic City Council Member Farah Louis called for aggressive oversight.

“Grief without accountability is not enough,” Louis said. “Buildings do not simply collapse without systemic failures.”

The city has ordered inspections at more than 160 sites in New York that are associated with six entities linked to the construction and demolition site where the building collapsed, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.

It's also bringing in an engineering consulting firm to provide an independent report, which Mamdani described as "standard practice for this kind of a tragic incident.”

All contractors doing excavation work must notify New York’s Department of Buildings 24 to 48 hours in advance, according to guidelines posted on the department’s website.

A contractor on this site provided notice Sept. 9 that work would begin the following day and include rock blasting.

Permits are required for most work, which must also meet submitted plans. All projects are required to have proper precautions, such as shoring, bracing and “regularly checking walls for cracks,” the city’s website says.

If any of the work violates any rule, regulation or law, the city’s building commissioner may issue a stop work order. The Buildings Department may also conduct random audits of excavation projects to inspect shoring, groundwater, excavation depth and other things that could affect safety.

“Department site monitoring does not relieve engineers and contractors of their professional responsibilities,” the city’s website says.

Contractors involved in the demolition and excavation of the property next to the collapsed building had faced previous complaints and alleged violations.

In March, the city issued a stop work order after inspectors concluded the building was being demolished without adequate overhead protection. In April, inspectors found that the demolition work had resumed in violation of that order, the department said, but work was allowed to continue after the problems were corrected.

The general contractor, Townhouse Builders Inc., which also operates as Promont, was accused in a lawsuit of causing extensive damage to an adjacent building during renovation work in Manhattan in 2016. Townhouse denied the allegations in court papers, and the suit appears to have been settled out of court.

Townhouse was also accused in a lawsuit of damaging and compromising the structural integrity of adjacent buildings while performing excavation, pile driving and steel beam installation for a six-story hotel project in Brooklyn in 2016.

The damage included a breached wall, shifting, settlement and cracking, according to the lawsuit, which accused Townhouse of failing to perform a physical inspection prior to excavation and failing to properly support the property’s walls.

Townhouse’s lawyers reached agreements four times to delay their deadline to submit a written answer to the claims but never did. Nothing has been posted to the docket since 2022.

The owner of Townhouse did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

The building that collapsed had a long history of citations for housing code violations, including ones this year for exposed wiring, a sprinkler-system problem, a roof leak and more, city records show. They list over 90 unresolved violations going back to the 1970s.

Building violations are meted out separately, and the structure has been cited in recent years for such things as having an unpermitted advertising sign and failing to file a required gas pipe inspection report, records show.

Messages seeking comment were sent to possible email addresses and phone numbers for the owner, and a message was left with an attorney who may have represented the owner in the past.

The investigation into Wednesday's building collapse should look into whether the designs that were submitted were adequate and, if they were, whether the contractor doing the work made a mistake, said Abi Aghayere, a professor of civil engineering at Drexel University who studies structural systems and why they fail.

“With an old building like this, the room for error is very, very, very, very slim,” Aghayere said.

There are four main possible causes for failure in a project that involves excavating adjacent to an existing building, he said. One is that vibration caused by the work could transmit to the nearby building and weaken the structure, he said.

A question investigators will need to look into is whether the integrity of the building that collapsed was being monitored during the work, Aghayere said.

Two other possibilities are that the shoring in place for the excavation work was not strong or stiff enough, he said. A fourth cause could be seepage of groundwater that caused the soil under the existing building to shift, destabilizing the property, he said.

Everyone — tenants, building owners and landlords — has a responsibility to report anything unusual they see, particularly in older buildings, Aghayere said.

“You might see a crack, don’t take it lightly,” he said. “That crack might be that building just crying out and saying, 'Help, help. I’m about to go.'”

Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri; Bauer from Madison, Wisconsin; and Brook from New Orleans. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz in New York and Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed.

New York City Department of Buildings employees stand on a rooftop during their investigation of a building that collapsed the previous day in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

First responders rescue a person after a building collapsed in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

Ciahola Lawrence, a resident of the Brooklyn building that partially collapsed, becomes emotional as she speaks during a news conference surrounded by public officials and community members in New York, Friday, Nov. 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Rev. Al Sharpton speaks during a news conference surrounded by public officials and community members in Brooklyn, New York, on Friday, Nov. 13, 2026.(AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

First responders work the scene after a building collapsed in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)