MANILA, Philippines — Acting Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Mao Aplasca said Friday, May 15, that they had so far failed to find CCTV footage covering the positions of his subordinates and Marines on Wednesday night, May 13, when Senate security forces and agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) exchanged gunfire following a Senate lockdown.

“As of yesterday, pina-review ko yung CCTV. Wala kaming mahanap ‘don sa area na position ng OSAA at Marines. Yung nakikita natin yung sa dulo na, ating tactical personnel,” said Aplasca in a May 15 interview on DZRH’s Dos Por Dos.

(As of yesterday, I asked a review of the CCTV. We cannot find footage of the area where the OSAA [Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms] and Marines were located. The footage we see only shows those towards the tail end, the tactical personnel.)

“As of yesterday, wala kaming mahanap na kuha ng mga galaw ng OSAA.”(We cannot find footage showing OSAA’s movements.)

The armed confrontation took place on the third day that Senator Ronald dela Rosa, a classmate of Aplasca at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), stayed inside the Senate premises to avoid possible arrest over an International Criminal Court (ICC) case linked to former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war.

Earlier on Wednesday evening, Dela Rosa said in a Facebook livestream that he had received information that he would be arrested by NBI agents or the police.

Aplasca later ordered a lockdown of the Senate and then gathered OSAA personnel, Marines and police assigned to the chamber, to respond to what he described as a “threat” to the security of the Senate and several senators still inside the building.

The sound of gunshots and the chaos that ensued on the second floor of the Senate were broadcast live on news media, and senators themselves even went live on social media — some, to decry what they claimed was an attack on the Senate.

The NBI said they were asked by the Government Service Insurance System, which owns the compound where the Senate is located, to secure its building.

The GSIS building and the Senate building are connected by a bridge – it is sealed and locked. The confrontation on the right side of the Senate building’s second floor took place where the connector between the two buildings is located.

Aplasca, a retired police general, has said he fired the first warning shot, a claim he has repeated in several interviews and which has also been asserted by the NBI and Malacañang. He said in interviews that he fired the shot because, even after NBI agents identified themselves, their actions did not, as far as he was concerned, indicate they would stand down.

That he fired the first warning shot is one of the few details of May 13 on which the Senate and the NBI or the Palace align. The NBI has said there were no plans to serve a warrant on Dela Rosa that night.

Hours after the gunfire, Dela Rosa quietly slipped out of the Senate building, reportedly with the help of his close ally, Senator Robin Padilla. Aplasca has said in an interview with reporters in the Senate on Thursday, May 14, that he was saddened by Dela Rosa’s “escape” because it meant he could no longer ensure his PMA classmate’s safety.

Senator President Alan Peter Cayetano, whose election to the Senate’s highest post was made possible by Dela Rosa’s appearance on Monday, May 11, has promised that CCTV footage would eventually be made public. He offered no timeline for its release.

In a briefing on Thursday, Cayetano said the OSAA gave a copy of the Senate’s CCTV footage to Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla on Monday night. Remulla had gone to the Senate himself to “secure” the senators that night.

In a statement on Friday, May 15, Senator Jinggoy Estrada, a member of the new Senate majority who was in the building during the OSAA-NBI confrontation, said his instruction to “hide” CCTV footage from that night meant “securing” it as it would serve as “important evidence” in the incident.

A clip of Estrada saying the footage should be hidden (itago, in Filipino) went viral on social media, sparking speculation about his motives.

Neither the PNP, the Senate, nor the NBI have said publicly how long the investigation would take. – Rappler.com