SEN. Antonio Trillanes 4th has been annoying the President for a long time. It would have been easier for the President to ignore him. After all, he talks to an echo chamber of fellow Duterte haters, and has on several occasions embarrassed himself, most notably during his disastrous encounter with the BBC’s Stephen Sackur.
Unfortunately, when President Duterte voided the amnesty granted to Trillanes by former President Noynoy Aquino, he may have inadvertently provided Trillanes with a new venue to keep on doing his annoying antics. There is no doubt that there must be a reason behind the action of the President. But whatever the reason was, there are now speculations that he is just providing a sideshow to distract people away from the more pressing gut issues of rising prices of fuel and basic commodities.
Whether this is true or not, the effect is still that the Trillanes affair has once again acquired the character of political theater, another episode in the reality TV that our politics has become and is now taking over the national discourse. And the scenario of Trillanes being given a new platform to perform his politics has emerged. And enabling the theatrical optics is a Senate under a siege mentality, bent on protecting its own and taking into custody a member who has not even been arrested yet. But you can’t blame the senators if they feel besieged. After all, 40 armed personnel of the state surrounded the Senate building, ready to arrest Trillanes when an arrest warrant has yet to be issued. As the street-smart would say, “advanced mag-isip.”
And partisans are once again at each other’s throats. Trillanes defenders cry persecution and the death of the rule of law, while Duterte loyalists are rejoicing over the possibility of seeing once again the self-appointed presidential tormentor behind bars.
Objectively, there are just too many legal questions raised by the President’s revocation of Trillanes’ amnesty. And these questions are in fact valid. Is it even a revocation when the ground used is that it is invalid, or void ab initio? Can the President unilaterally revoke an amnesty that has already been granted, and to which Congress has concurred? What is the nature of the court decision that was the consequence of the granting of amnesty? Was it an outright dismissal of the cases filed against Trillanes and his fellow Magdalo members with prejudice to any future legal action, or that it was an effective bar and hence double jeopardy would necessarily set in? Would Trillanes still be subjected to a court martial even if he already effectively resigned from military service when he became a senator? Can a court martial lose jurisdiction over a case which it has already taken cognizance of?
The President argues that Trillanes did not in fact qualify for the amnesty because there is no record that he filed a formal application. There is evidence that Trillanes publicly declared in media interviews that he was not willing to admit guilt to the specific charge of coup d’etat, even as there are also available media footages where he claims he had filed an application. It is a rule that in order to qualify for amnesty, a formal application should be filed and a formal admission of guilt should be made. Hence, the question of admissibility of media footages submitted as evidence becomes crucial in the issue.
But more fundamentally, the question is whether infirmities in the application, even if present, are now effectively negated by the acts of President Aquino, and by Congress by application of the doctrine of operative fact. There is some sense in the opinion of Father Ranhilio Callangan-Aquino, Dean of the San Beda Graduate School of Law and a noted legal scholar, on this matter. It is reasonable to argue that amnesties are granted to seal the reconciliation between the state and its prodigal citizens. As such, when granted unconditionally, they should no longer be disturbed. Otherwise, the very nature of an amnesty, if subjected to revocation on the ground of being imperfectly executed, will render it a useless instrument for peace-making and moving on. Rebels will now think twice about availing of amnesties if there is always the possibility that it will be revoked and they will be charged the same offense for which they were already pardoned. Besides, any imperfection would naturally entail the participation of the state itself, whether knowingly or unknowingly, which in this case was perfected through the acts of President Aquino and Congress.
A sober and cerebral take on this issue is to treat the revocation of the amnesty granted to Trillanes as a learning opportunity for all of us to push further the boundaries of the law, in order to explore new questions that may be useful in enriching our jurisprudence. However, the landscape is so politically charged that partisans will not allow this to be a teaching-learning moment. The Trillanes affair unfolds in a politicized terrain inhabited by irrational loyalties, blind partisanships, feigned ignorance by some lawyers and journalists who keep on asking not the right questions but only those that advance their political biases, and of people who only see either a hateful Duterte or a hateful Trillanes.
In the end, and much to the chagrin of his critics, it looks like Trillanes emerges here with an invigorated sense of self-importance. He keeps his narrative of being the President’s tormentor, and he is given another lease in his political life that earlier would have faced an end-of-term sunset next year.
And by all indications, and despite the social media noise created by Duterte partisans singing praises of what they perceive as evidence of his political genius in executing a brilliant move of political chess, the President may just have allowed Trillanes another venue to keep on annoying him. In the parlance of political theater, the President has given Trillanes another season to play his antics as a persecuted critic.
One should, however, take note of the fact that Trillanes is not alone when he was granted amnesty. Other members of Magdalo were granted the same, including not only people like Gary Alejano who is a critic of the President, but also others like Nicanor Faeldon, Milo Maestrecampo and Gerardo Gambala who are now working with the Duterte administration.
It behooves us all to ask if the amnesty granted to them also suffer the same infirmities that are now found in Trillanes’, and what would the President do if this is the case.
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