Come out, come out, wherever you are, Senator Bato
No work, no pay. Dismissal for abandoning duties and responsibilities, plus damage suit. The 47.94 million employed Filipinos know those all too well.
Not Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, it seems. He has been absent for four-and-a-half months. Yet he continues to draw multimillion-peso monthly salary and allowances.
“Halos lahat naka four-day work week na, tapos kulang ang kita. Si Bato, zero days working, pero overpaid,” laments political analyst Ronald Llamas about his namesake.
The injustice of it all isn’t lost on Filipinos struggling to make ends meet. Fuel prices have doubled, food tripled. Parents must moonlight for baon for children who in turn must tighten belts.
On April 15, 5.7 million middle earners will pay yearly income taxes. From such payments are drawn monthly releases for Bato:
• Salary of around P300,000;
• Representation and transportation, P15,500, and subsistence allowance, P2,000;
• Staff salaries, P2.5 million to P3.5 million and
• Office maintenance and other operating expenses, P1.5 million to P2.2 million.
Bato remains chairman of the Senate committee on civil Service, government reorganization, and professional regulation. Committee chairmen get monthly allowance of P1 million to P3 million.
Bato last showed up at the Senate in late September 2025. Congress adjourned on Oct. 4 to Nov. 9. Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla announced that Interpol has a warrant of arrest for Bato. He supposedly was implicated in ex-president Rody Duterte’s indictment for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.
Duterte is presently detained at ICC. His P2.6 million/month lawyer is petitioning for his temporary liberty while undergoing trial.
Several times, amid speculations of impending arrest by Interpol, Bato bravadoed that he’d gladly keep his former boss company inside ICC jail.
Once served, an arrest warrant puts an indictee under the ambit of the court. Upon appearance he can seek temporary release with or without bail. During Bato’s term as PNP chief, 2016-2018, 7,000 drug suspects were killed supposedly for repulsing (nanlaban). They were never served arrest warrants.
Bato never returned to work on Nov 10. On Nov. 11 he failed to sponsor the Dept. of National Defense’s 2026 budget. Another senator had to pinch hit.
Bato is AWOL, absent without official leave. As PNP officer for 32 years, 1986-2018, he knows the gravity of such status. The PNP Operations Manual deems a policeman AWOL if absent for five calendar days or more but less than 30 days, and the superior officer must draft a return-to-work order. If AWOL for 30 days or more, the culprit is dropped from the rolls without prior notice.
The 109-year-old Senate has no rules on absenteeism. Today members can only murmur about what to do with Bato. Without written guidelines approved by the plenary, the committee on ethics can’t sanction him. The plenary must also approve whatever penalty the committee recommends.
There’s a precedent. Senator Ping Lacson left the Philippines on Jan. 5, 2010 just before the Manila Court ordered his arrest for the Dacer-Corbito murders. He continued to draw salaries and allowances till Oct. 10 that year. The Commission on Audit ordered then-Senate president Juan Ponce Enrile to stop all payments. Lacson returned on March 26, 2011.
Bato likes the Senate’s loose work hours. He said so in a plenary session, May 26, 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. He attended online from home. The expected five-hour deliberations were cut to only two. “Sarap ng buhay! Sarap ng buhay! Ganito na lang tayo palagi, ha,” he enthused.
Bato invokes justice to explain his long absence. On Jan. 21, 2026 he posted on Facebook: “Here I am, alive and well, gratefully celebrating 64 years of this God-given life.
“I am waiting. Waiting for a true seeking for justice to emerge and take over. Not this threat of fake and foreign meddling, from those who do not and can never know us or be us. If indeed there are cases against me, then I wait for a time and a certainty that I shall be able to face these cases as a Filipino, before Filipinos.”
Filipinos are waiting for him to resurface, or to resign if he cannot serve them anymore.
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