Philippine Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, the first police chief to enforce Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal drug war, has said he intends to visit the former president in his detention cell in The Hague. But baseless posts claiming the meeting has occurred in late May have misrepresented an old picture.
“There, I’m sure Father Digong is happy that he finally saw Senator Bato at The Hague,” reads part of a Tagalog-language Facebook post on May 25, 2025, using Duterte and Dela Rosa’s popular nicknames.
“It’s nice to see him in good health,” adds the post which includes a picture of the pair at a dinner table.
Similar posts also surfaced on X, TikTok and YouTube.
Duterte was arrested at Manila’s international airport on March 11 and flown to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on the same day to face charges tied to his crackdown on drugs that killed thousands of mostly poor men (archived link).
Despite being in detention, he was re-elected mayor of his family stronghold Davao city in a landslide vote.
Communication has come sporadically and through surrogates, mainly his daughter Vice President Sara Duterte who has not announced any visit recently from Dela Rosa.
There have also been no official reports as of June 2 that the senator, the main architect of Duterte’s anti-narcotics campaign, saw the detained former president (archived link).
Read the full story on AFP Fact Check.