Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Gunfire erupts in the Philippine Senate, Malaysian authorities weigh a snap election, and scientists unveil the discovery of a massive dinosaur in Thailand.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Southeast Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Gunfire erupts in the Philippine Senate, Malaysian authorities weigh a snap election, and scientists unveil the discovery of a massive dinosaur in Thailand.

Gunfire in Philippine Senate

On May 13, shots were heard in the Senate of the Philippines.

At the heart of the drama was fugitive Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa. Wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on an arrest warrant that was unveiled on May 11, dela Rosa surfaced the same day for a crucial vote. After the melee on May 13, he again disappeared.

This is the latest twist in a struggle between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his erstwhile allies, the Duterte family.

In the days before the firefight, the Philippine legislature had been consumed with an ongoing campaign to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte.

The House of Representatives advanced articles of impeachment on May 11.

Now the Senate must decide her fate. This takes the form of a trial for several alleged offenses, including corruption and threats to assassinate the president and his wife.

The last charge may be hard to deny, as she did so in comments that were streamed on Facebook, though she also said that the hitman she had retained would act only if she was killed first.

Duterte’s impeachment would prevent her from running for president in 2028. An attempt to impeach her was also launched December 2024, but this was blocked by the Supreme Court on procedural grounds.

Meanwhile, her father—former President Rodrigo Duterte—was arrested in March 2025 and sent to the ICC for trial over his so-called war on drugs.

As the impeachment articles advanced, dela Rosa—a staunch Duterte ally who had been hiding from his own ICC warrant concerning his alleged involvement in the drug war—appeared back in the Senate on May 11 for an important vote.

Sprinting into the chamber, the former police chief helped provide a majority to install a more pro-Duterte Senate leadership ahead of the trial. (Dela Rosa later claimed that law enforcement had been hot on his tail as he ran in.)

He then holed up in the Senate to try to avoid arrest. In a teary-eyed livestream the next day, he begged not to be sent to The Hague for trial. He also filed a petition with the Supreme Court in an attempt to block the warrant.

Then,........

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