Gunfire breaks out in Philippine Senate where authorities have tried to arrest a senator

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A burst of gunfire rang out Wednesday night in the Philippine Senate, where authorities have tried to arrest a senator who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for a charge of crime against humanity, an Associated Press journalist and other witnesses said.

It wasn't immediately clear what set off the gunfire or if there were injuries in the Senate chamber, where Sen. Ronald dela Rosa has stayed under the protection of allied senators as Philippine authorities tried to arrest him and possibly turn him over later to the ICC.

The ICC had no immediate comment on the events in Manila.

Senate President Alan Cayetano briefly appeared before journalists in the Senate and confirmed that he has been told by the building’s security that gunshots were fired, but he didn't provide other details and hastily left.

“The emotions are high here,” Cayetano said. “This is the Senate of the Philippines and we are allegedly under attack.”

A huge throng of reporters and photo and video journalists, who have been covering the tense developments, were asked to stay in an area on the second floor. Some were later allowed to leave the building after Interior Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla Jr. arrived with police officers.

On Monday, the ICC unsealed an arrest warrant for dela Rosa, a former national police chief who first enforced then President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug 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, when he led the national police force under Duterte.

Dela Rosa, 64, has vowed to fight the ICC arrest order and said that he would seek all legal remedies. He also called on his followers on Wednesday night to gather in the Senate to prevent what he said was his impending arrest.

National Bureau of Investigation agents tried to arrest dela Rosa on Monday, but he managed to dash to the Senate's plenary hall and sought the help of fellow senators. Cayetano said then that he would cite the government agents involved for contempt.

Duterte was arrested in March last year and flown to the ICC's headquarters in The Hague for detention. He remains detained by the ICC in the Netherlands and is facing a trial for alleged crimes against humanity for the killings in his brutal crackdown, in which dela Rosa has been named as one of several co-perpetrators.

“We should not allow another Filipino to be brought to The Hague, the second one after President Duterte,” dela Rosa said, addressing his followers in a Facebook message and blaming politics for his predicament.

“This is unacceptable,” dela Rosa said.

He said that he was ready to face any allegations before Philippine courts, but he denied condoning extrajudicial killings when he led the police force. Duterte has also made the same denials, although he openly threatened suspected drug dealers with death while he was in office.

Hundreds of police officers have been deployed outside the Senate to maintain order, sparking complaints from dela Rosa and allied senators.

“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” on Monday when he reappeared after months of absence.

Five senators called on dela Rosa to surrender to authorities in a proposed resolution, but his allies opposed the move in a heated exchange on Wednesday in the Senate, where 13 of 24 senators friendly to dela Rosa wrested control of its leadership on Monday.

Dela Rosa has been critical of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. but pleaded emotionally before television cameras on Monday for the president not to bring him to The Hague.

Duterte and his daughter, the current vice president, and political allies like dela Rosa have been the harshest critics of Marcos. Vice President Sara Duterte, once a political ally of Marcos, has blamed the president for allowing what she said was “the kidnapping” of her father and his handover to a foreign court.

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 withdrew the Philippines in 2019 from the ICC, in a move human rights activists say was aimed at escaping accountability.

The ICC, however, said that it retained jurisdiction over crimes committed when the Philippines was still a member and successfully moved to have him arrested, the first former Asian leader to fall into such disgrace.

Mike Corder contributed to this report from The Hague, Netherlands.

Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa gestures to reporters at the Philippine Senate in Pasay, Philippines on Wednesday, May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Philippine troopers exchange fire along a hallway at the Philippine Senate in Pasay, Philippines on Wednesday May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Philippine troopers exchange fire along a hallway at the Philippine Senate in Pasay, Philippines on Wednesday May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Philippine troopers exchange fire along a hallway at the Philippine Senate in Pasay, Philippines on Wednesday May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

Philippine troopers exchange fire along a hallway at the Philippine Senate in Pasay, Philippines on Wednesday May 13, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

NEW YORK (AP) — Negotiators for baseball players and owners began what figures to be lengthy and acrimonious collective bargaining negotiations Tuesday to replace their labor contract that expires Dec. 1, with management likely to propose a salary cap system the union has vowed never to accept.

An initial session took place at the office of the Major League Baseball Players Association, a five-minute walk from Major League Baseball's headquarters in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center. The meeting lasted about two hours and was scheduled for initial presentations from each side on their view of the sport and its economics. No proposals were made.

Players who attended included Mets infielder Marcus Semien, a member of the union's eight-man executive subcommittee, along with Mets teammates Clay Holmes, David Peterson, Austin Slater and Sean Manaea. Several Detroit Tigers players, who were in town to play the Mets, also were at the meeting and additional players joined via video conference.

“It’s the first one I’ve been at, so I don’t really have much to compare it to," Holmes said. "It was just kind of initial meetings, first time the sides were getting together and kind of sharing their thoughts on kind of where they thought things were at and what they thought was best for kind of the game moving forward.”

The sport's five-year labor contract expires Dec. 1, and baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has said repeatedly that management prefers offseason lockouts to in-season strikes, aiming to prevent the loss of regular-season games. Baseball has not lost regular-season games to a work stoppage since a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95 that caused the first cancellation of the World Series in 90 years.

Talks for the last agreement began in April 2021 and ended with a deal on March 10, 2022, that preserved the 162-game schedule only after the sides bargained past several deadlines and Manfred announced the cancellation of 184 games, which were restored.

Bruce Meyer will lead negotiations for the union, as he did in 2021-22, but in his new role as interim union head. He moved up from deputy director in February after the forced resignation of Tony Clark, a former All-Star first baseman who took over following the death of Michael Weiner in 2013.

Deputy Commissioner Dan Halem heads MLB's negotiations team, as he did in talks for the previous two agreements.

MLB and Meyer declined to comment on the session.

“I think just player engagement as a whole, it just seems like there’s a lot of it right now,” Holmes said. “Guys are wanting to hear and guys are wanting to be there and so, just to be able to kind of be there and pass along things that you may see or learn or just have conversations there.”

Some major league owners have said a salary cap system that also contains a floor is needed and would improve the sport. MLB, unlike the NFL, NBA and NHL, has not had a cap system but since 2003 has had a luxury tax designed to slow spending.

“When I talk to the players, I don’t try to convince them that a salary cap system would be a good thing,” Manfred told the Baseball Writers’ Association of America last summer. “I identify a problem in the media business and explain to them that owners need to change to address that problem. I then identify a second problem that we need to work together and that is that there are fans in a lot of our markets who feel like we have a competitive balance problem."

Restraints had not appeared to have had much impact on the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets in recent years. The Dodgers shattered MLB's spending records with a combined $515 million in payroll and luxury tax last year en route to their second straight World Series title, according to final figures compiled by the commissioner’s office, and Los Angeles is projected for the highest total again in 2026. The ratio of the five highest spenders to the five lowest increased from 3.6 in 2021 to a record-high 4.7 last year.

The union maintains a cap system decreases spending on players, while management argues a cap and a floor would benefit most players.

Players increased their potential war chest of cash and investments ahead of collective bargaining to $415 million heading into 2026. MLB also has been accumulating cash ahead of bargaining, about $75 million per club in withheld central fund distributions.

AP Baseball Writer Mike Fitzpatrick contributed to this report.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB

FILE - Rob Manfred, commissioner of Major League Baseball answers questions during a news conference at the MLB winter meetings, Dec. 8, 2025, in Orlando, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux, file)

FILE - Attorney Bruce Meyer, the current interim executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, speaks at a news conference in New York, March 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)