MANILA — Philippine police on Tuesday arrested a lawmaker who is among President Rodrigo Duterte’s most vocal critics, just minutes after a court issued a warrant on revived charges of rebellion that were dropped in 2011 after an amnesty.

The arrest of Senator Antonio Trillanes is the latest round in his sparring with Duterte, whom he accuses of hiding wealth and being responsible for alleged executions of thousands of suspected criminals and drug dealers, which Duterte denies.

Trillanes has backed several complaints to the International Criminal Court (ICC) seeking the president’s indictment for crimes against humanity and has protected people willing to testify against Duterte.

“This is a debacle and a defeat of democracy,” Trillanes, a former navy officer, who accompanied arresting officers into a vehicle and was taken to a police station to be photographed and fingerprinted before posting bail, told reporters.

“We expect other forms of harassment in the days to come,” he said, adding that he expected the worst.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said it was time for Trillanes to stop grandstanding.

“The court has spoken,” he said in a statement. “Let us stop the drama by press conference and allow the legal process to take its course.”

Trillanes, a household name in the Philippines for his efforts to bring down the president, has stolen the political limelight in the three weeks since Duterte voided an amnesty given him by predecessor Benigno Aquino, citing flaws in the procedure, including a missing application form.

He had been holed up in his office under the Senate’s protection since Duterte’s order for the police and army to arrest him, although they were reluctant to do so.

Duterte later agreed a court warrant was necessary, following an outcry from opponents and legal experts who called it authoritarian and unconstitutional.

The revival of the charges against the senator was “the latest in the relentless campaign to silence those who dared to challenge the president’s murderous drug war,” New York-based Human Rights Watch said.

“Trillanes’ arrest today sends a chilling effect among other critics of the Duterte administration,” said Carlos Conde, a researcher at the rights group’s Asia office.

Trillanes received clemency after involvement in a failed 2003 coup and a mutiny four years later, both aimed at overthrowing then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, an ally of Duterte who is now lower house speaker.

On Tuesday, a poll showed Duterte suffered the biggest ratings slump of his presidency in the third quarter, as public unease grows over rising inflation and the cost of staple food grain rice.

Duterte’s approval rating, a measure of his performance, dropped 13 points to 75 percent in a survey of 1,800 voting-age Filipinos conducted by Pulse Asia this month.

His trust rating, which gauges sentiment about his personality, fell 15 points to 72 percent. A similar poll in June had scored him at 88 percent and 87 percent respectively.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Duterte, who has been in office since June 2016, was unperturbed by ratings and was focused on doing his job.

“We are not affected by it because the president will do his best to discharge his duties,” Roque told a regular news briefing. “I believe that’s still a very good approval rating.”

Roque said rising inflation could have caused the drop in the ratings because higher prices for rice, have negated the administration’s gains in other areas.

The survey was conducted in the first week of September, when official data showed annual inflation at 6.4 percent in August, the highest in nearly a decade.

It came amid calls to abolish the grains import agency and in a week when a graft complaint was made against its chief, who has since resigned.

Another pollster, Social Weather Stations, released results this month of a second-quarter poll that showed trust in Duterte had dropped to its lowest level during his presidency, although he maintained a rating of “very good”. — Reuters