SEN. Antonio Trillanes 4th submitted himself to the custody of Senate President Vicente Sotto 3rd on Tuesday, with the former Magdalo mutineer fearing he would be arrested without a warrant after the surprise revocation of his 2011 amnesty by President Rodrigo Duterte.
Trillanes spent the night in the Senate building under the tight watch of the chamber’s sergeant at arms, after delivering a privilege speech rejecting the basis of the revocation laid down by Duterte’s Proclamation 572.
“My lawyers are exhausting all legal remedies to void this stupid executive order. I will abide by the wisdom of the Senate leadership,” Trillanes said in an interview.
The senator refused to go with members of the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) who went to the Senate supposedly to arrest him, saying they did not possess a warrant.
Trillanes, however, said he would not resist an arrest order, if implemented by authorities.
“I will pack my things. I will not hide definitely,” he said.
Trillanes accused Solicitor General Jose Calida of instigating the revocation of his amnesty and carrying it out on the day he was supposed to investigate contracts obtained by the Calida family’s security agency from various government agencies.
“So, we’re living basically in a ‘de facto’ martial law environment of the 1970s kind. The assurance given to me by the Senate president is that for as long as I’m in the Senate premises, he will not allow any arrest,” Trillanes said.
Proclamation 572 revoked the Department of National Defense (DND) Ad Hoc Committee Resolution dated January 11, 2011 granting amnesty to Trillanes for leading the “Oakwood mutiny” in Makati City (July 2003), the Marines standoff in Taguig City (February 2006) and the Manila Peninsula hotel siege, also in Makati (November 2007).
Word on the surprise proclamation, signed on August 31 before the President left for Israel, spread after its publication on Tuesday in the classified ads section of The Manila Times.
‘No requirements’
In the proclamation, Duterte said Trillanes failed to comply with the minimum requirements to qualify for an amnesty proclamation: application for amnesty and admission of the crime.
“The admission of the crime is important. The amnesty is part of beneficence on the part of the state, what happened before will be erased and the crime will not exist anymore but the admission of the crime should be done. Senator Trillanes did not admit anything,” Malacañang spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said in a news conference in Israel, where the President was on an official visit.
Duterte, in the directive, ordered the Department of Justice (DoJ), the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police to pursue all criminal and administrative cases against Trillanes, who was a lieutenant senior grade, equivalent to captain, in the Philippine Navy.
Col. Edgard Arevalo, the military spokesman, said the Armed Forces’ leadership had instructed the convening of the general court martial or the military court to try Trillanes for mounting coup attempts during the term of former president and now House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Trillanes insisted he had complied with amnesty requirements.
“You will not be granted amnesty if you don’t have any application. That’s clear. That’s why this is a clear case of political persecution because they cannot find any case against me. So, they need to invent,” he said.
No warrant yet
The DoJ immediately asked the Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) to issue an arrest warrant and hold departure order against Trillanes.
The three-page “Very Urgent Ex Parte Omnibus Motion” was signed by the officer in charge of the prosecutor general’s office, Richard Anthony Fadullon, Senior Assistant State Prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera and Assistant State Prosecutor Mary Jane Sitat.
Judge Andres Soriano of the Makati RTC Branch 148 said an arrest warrant could not be issued immediately.
Soriano said he still had to review 53 documents on the Oakwood and Manila Peninsula incidents, some of which he was yet to obtain from the court warehouse.
“Based on this case, I don’t think he would be arrested,” he told reporters.
Any other arrest would be considered a warrantless arrest, which would need legal basis, the judge said.
Senators hit order
Senators from the majority and minority blocs said on Tuesday Proclamation 572 had no basis and that pursuing a criminal case against Trillanes would amount to double jeopardy, which is prohibited under the Constitution.
Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon pointed out that the Makati court had dismissed the criminal cases against Trillanes.
Drilon added that when amnesty was granted to Trillanes, it was as if no crime was committed.
“Jurisprudence provides that the grant of amnesty abolishes and puts into oblivion the offense itself, it so overlooks and obliterates the offense with which he is charged that the person released by amnesty stands before the law precisely as though he had committed no offense,” he said, citing jurisprudence in the Barrioquinto vs Enrique case.
Drilon lauded Senate President Sotto for instructing the Senate sergeant at arms to bar arresting officers on Tuesday.
Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto said charges should have been filed against Trillanes if he had violated the law, instead of revoking the 2011 amnesty.
Detained Sen. Leila de Lima condemned Duterte’s proclamation, saying it was a political move to try to silence Trillanes.
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said any amnesty revocation needed the concurrence of Congress.
In a statement, the lawmaker said Proclamation 75 issued by then President Benigno Aquino 3rd in 2010, the original amnesty proclamation concurred in by Congress, did not provide for a revocation clause.
“Consequently, the reported revocation by President Rodrigo Duterte of the amnesty granted to Sen. Antonio Trillanes has no legal and factual basis,” Lagman noted.
In a separate statement, Akbayan party-list Rep. Tomas Villarin said Duterte’s order was no more than “political vendetta against a very vocal critic.”
Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo said: “The decision of the Palace to declare the amnesty granted to Trillanes as void is another proof that this administration is willing to do anything to silence its critics.”
Jose Luis Martin Gascon, head of the Commission on Human Rights, said he would look into the implications of the revocation of the amnesty proclamation.
Magdalo, Aquino: Application valid
The Magdalo party-list composed of Trillanes’ fellow ex-mutineers showed a video of the senator submitting an application form for amnesty at the Department of National Defense, and publicly admitting guilt.
“We are man enough to admit that we committed mistakes...We faced the consequences...It was easy for us to do that. Members of Magdalo who were also present at that time could attest to this,” the party said.
Ex-president Aquino said Trillanes’ application was in order, and that it was given to him on January 25, 2011.
“We will assist him as far as we are able to, to be able to defend his rights and the rights of anybody else in this country,” he told CNN Philippines.
Trillanes, 47, campaigned for and won a Senate seat from his prison cell in 2007. He got the 11th spot out of 12 vacant seats with 11.2 million votes. He was reelected in 2013, placing ninth with 14.1 million votes.
After spending seven years in prison on coup d’etat charges, Trillanes was sworn into office by then-Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and was finally able to attend his first Senate session on January 17, 2011, three years late.
He emerged as a strident Duterte critic and accused the former Davao City mayor of hiding P2 billion in bank transactions shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
In a speech before new barangay (village) officials in Cebu City last June 7, the President said “there will come a day that someone will shoot him (Trillanes) because he’s arrogant.”
Trillanes dared Duterte to “go ahead [and] order somebody to shoot me,” but warned the President “it would lead to your end.”
WITH JEFFERSON ANTIPORDA, REINA C. TOLENTINO, RALPH U. VILLANUEVA, DEMPSEY REYES, JOMAR CANLAS AND NEIL JAYSON N. SERVALLOS