EVENTUALLY, the story of Sen. Antonio Trillanes 4th will be written. And when it is, I hope his biographer will realize that he was a man who generated too much hate and made too many unnecessary enemies in the service of vitriol-powered political career — so many, in fact, that it led to his eventual undoing.
I find it amusing, for instance, that Trillanes has announced that he will go to the Supreme Court to seek a restraining order stopping the implementation of the voiding of his presidential amnesty. While this is a normal course of action and the justices of the high court are supposed to be totally impartial, I think Trillanes may have forgotten that his riding-in-tandem Magdalo partner, Rep. Gary Alejano, initiated impeachment proceedings against seven of the members of the tribunal in the House of Representatives.
Because both Trillanes and Alejano have made it a point to appear like identical political twins, I doubt very much if this small detail will be lost on the court when it considers the senator’s petition for a restraining order. If Trillanes is jailed while his petition is being heard — and there is a very strong likelihood that this will happen — I won’t blame the court if it takes one look at the document and decides that it has more important things to do, especially if Alejano does the petitioning himself.
It’s true that the court should not consider the fact that the same people who want half the justices impeached are now begging it to stop Malacañang from throwing Trillanes in jail. But justices are also human, as they proved in the recrimination-filled quo warranto proceedings against the pretender to the chief justiceship, Maria Lourdes Sereno.
The other thing that Trillanes and his camp are making a big noise about is the supposed requirement of Congress approval for the voiding order to take effect. Trillanes and his few backers may have been thinking that they can get the Senate to prevent President Rodrigo Duterte from returning the senator to the military brig.
Indeed, it’s obvious that the Senate, which is making a big deal about not allowing the arrest of Trillanes in its premises, has an understandable interest in keeping the senator-putschist in its custody, which is really ironic since the same Senate once allowed the arrest of then Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile in its old digs, by former National Bureau of Investigation Director Alfredo Lim on orders of President Cory Aquino.
Unfortunately for Trillanes, the Senate is only half of Congress. The bigger half, over at the Batasan Pambansa, is now controlled by another old foe of the senator, Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
The Senate may still be a toss-up and the issue may still need some study (Congress approval, I’ve been told, is not a requirement because implementing the order is strictly the province of the Executive). But what’s clear is that with Arroyo firmly in control of the House, the congressmen loyal to her and who make up the vast majority may not be in such a good mood to intervene in the case of Trillanes.
The thing is, except for his bosom buddy Alejano and the ragtag contingent of Liberal Party members in the Senate, no one has really taken up the cause of Trillanes. Even his old Magdalo buddies in the military, who accuse him of feathering his own nest and abandoning their cause in favor of a high-flying career in the Senate, will not come to the aid of this political and ideological apostate.
Speaking of the cause that propelled Trillanes to the Senate, that was the impoverished plight of the ordinary soldiers who, according to the Magdalo at the time, were being sent to die even without decent combat boots and without any means to take them to military hospitals, where they were left to die anyway because these were understaffed and unstocked with proper medicines. In case Trillanes may have forgotten, things have changed since then.
Duterte has doubled the pay of the military and the police, improved their hospitals and scoured the world for the equipment and firearms that they need. This president, unlike Trillanes’ old boss Noynoy, has shifted the focus of military procurement from big-ticket items like fighter jets and decommissioned cutters to needful things that could actually save soldiers’ lives, like better arms and basic equipment.
All of this is proof that, except for the hard-core and incorrigible Yellows still loyal to Aquino and his lapdogs like Trillanes, no one will even take to the streets in support of the beleaguered senator. And when the Liberals realize that all their moves to fight for Trillanes are not gaining popular traction, he will be dropped like a hot potato just like Sereno was upon her ouster.
Tell me: Why are the Liberals who sounded like they would join Sereno to the grave when she was fighting her ouster are now as quiet as anything?
As it was with Sereno, so it will be with Trillanes and, down the road, when it becomes clear that she will not be able to fulfill their cause of bringing down Duterte, Maria Leonor Robredo. The Liberals are users that way, which is why all of their “heroes” are disposable except when they are surnamed Aquino.
The Trillanes story is, after all, one based on unreasonable and unrelenting hatred. And while it is possible to have a successful political career based on non-stop anger, bullying and false accusations, it is not, in the end, a sustainable way of doing productive legislation and even of conducting clear-eyed investigations.
Oh, and by the way, Trillanes’ biographer should not fail to point out that the only piece of significant legislation that the senator produced in 12 years in the Senate is the Continuing Professional Development Act. The CPD law forces all holders of government professional licenses to renew them every year after passing a test.
But the CPD tests have been a laughingstock and a constant source of pain and grief for the ordinary professional, who must cough up money to corrupt examiners and (even when there is no corruption) are a big financial imposition on what few professionals are in the far-flung areas.
Hatred and CPD. These are the legacies of Trillanes.
No wonder so many people want him to resist arrest when he is eventually convinced to leave his Senate sanctuary.
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