FACT CHECK: PNP official did not say arresting Dela Rosa is ‘treachery’

Unrelated audio was superimposed on footage from an October 30 briefing to make it appear that PNP deputy chief Police Lieutenant General Wilson Joseph Lopez made the statement Police Lieutenant General Wilson Joseph Lopez's alleged statements about dying for the ICC being treachery are false and misattributed. The video claiming to show Lopez making these remarks is authentic, but the audio has been manipulated to misrepresent his actual statements. Lopez did not make the statements attributed to him, and he emphasized the importance of the PNP's mandate to arrest Senator Dela Rosa, who is wanted under an ICC warrant. This is AI-generated. Read the article for full context. Report any errors. Claim: Philippine National Police (PNP) deputy chief Police Lieutenant General Wilson Joseph Lopez said that dying for the International Criminal Court (ICC) constitutes treachery, and that arresting Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa under a warrant issued by a foreign body amounts to a betrayal of fellow Filipinos. Rating: FALSE Why we fact-checked this: Three Facebook reels posted on November 5 and 6 show Lopez delivering a statement during a press briefing. In it, Lopez allegedly said: “Mamatay kayo para sa bayan, iyan ay kabayanihan. Pero mamatay kayo para sa ICC, iyan ay katraydoran. Tandaan ninyo, ang pag-aresto kay Senator Bato gamit ang warrant ng dayuhan, iyan ay katraydoran sa kapwa Pilipino. At tatatak yan sa history ng kapulisan at kasundalohan at magiging masama kayo sa paningin ng bawat Pilipino.” (If you die for the country, that is heroism. But if you die for the ICC, that is treachery. Remember, arresting Senator Bato under a foreign warrant is treachery against fellow Filipinos. That will remain in the history of the police and military, and every Filipino will see you in a bad light.) As of writing, the three videos garnered a combined 810,000 views, over 26,000 reactions, and nearly 2,400 shares, with one video alone receiving more than 23,000 reactions. The videos surfaced amid the ongoing manhunt for Dela Rosa, the subject of an ICC arrest warrant. The facts: No credible report or official record indicates that Lopez or any other police official made the remarks heard in the video. While the video footage itself is authentic, the audio does not correspond to Lopez’s actual statements and appears to have been superimposed to falsely suggest that the police official made those remarks. The video clip is from an October 30 press conference at Camp Crame, where Lopez — who heads the task force to locate and arrest Dela Rosa — spoke to the media after the senator’s deadline to surrender expired. During the briefing, Lopez said the PNP would carry out its mandate to arrest Dela Rosa and urged the senator to surrender peacefully. He also prominently recalled Dela Rosa’s former role as the “father” of the police force. “Kung sa puso niya ay naroon pa ang kanyang pagiging tatay ng PNP, alam ko hindi niya hahayaan na isa o dalawang member ng PNP ang masasaktan,” Lopez said. (If he still considers himself a father to the PNP, I know he would not want even one or two PNP personnel to be harmed.) Contrary to the claim, Lopez did not make the statements heard in the video. None of the remarks attributed to him in the circulating videos appear in the statements he made during the October 30 briefing. Enforcing the warrant: The ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I issued an arrest warrant against Dela Rosa under seal on November 6, 2025, and made it public on May 11, 2026. The senator is accused of murder for crimes against humanity related to former president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war campaign. On May 21, Justice Secretary Fredderick Vida said the PNP and the National Bureau of Investigation were tasked with implementing the warrant. The Supreme Court later rejected Dela Rosa’s request for a temporary restraining order against its enforcement. Dela Rosa remains at large, with a P50-million bounty offered for information leading to his arrest. On November 9, PNP chief General Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. said authorities had received at least 500 reports on Dela Rosa’s possible whereabouts and had conducted operations to verify them, even going to remote island areas to find the senator. – Cyril Bocar/Rappler.com Efren Cyril Bocar is a journalist from Llorente, Eastern Samar who graduated with a degree in English Language Studies at the Visayas State University. Cyril is also a graduate of the Aries Rufo Journalism Fellowship of Rappler for 2024. Keep us aware of suspicious Facebook pages, groups, accounts, websites, articles, or photos in your network by contacting us at factcheck@rappler.com. Let us battle disinformation one Fact Check at a time. How does this make you feel? Loading