President Duterte’s revocation of the amnesty given by his predecessor to Senator Antonio Trillanes IV in 2010 —which in fact erased the guilt of Trillanes and some 53 Magdalo mutineers —brings to fore disturbing questions.
Can President Duterte really nullify an amnesty? He claims Trillanes failed to comply with its terms.
If it is true as alleged by Trillanes that he applied and accepted the terms of the amnesty given by former President BS Aquino, should it not be taken that it is valid from the beginning?
Should not the records show this, and should not the records be made public?
Since a President is a political animal, wasn’t his action on Trillanes an act of vengeance? The senator has been a vociferous critic of the President. Mr. Duterte even once vowed he would destroy Trillanes.
The timing of the revocation is suspicious. We are now very close to having a rice crisis.
It is the height of hypocrisy for the minions of Malacañang to claim that this act is not political in nature.
I am certain Trillanes will seek all available legal means to get himself out of this hole. He is fortunate that his colleagues at the Senate are crossing party lines giving him sanctuary so that could seek redress in courts of law.
The timing is also suspicious in that Trillanes is probing the alleged conflicts of interest of Solicitor General Jose Calida who remains major stockholder of a security agency that has contracts with various government agencies. The action on Trillanes sounds too similar to the quo warranto proceeding brought before Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
Did Congress ratify the amnesty given by BS Aquino to Trillanes? If it did, then shouldn’t the revocation also have the concurrence of Congress?
We need this controversy like a hole in the head. We should be dealing with the food crisis and how to make life easier for Filipinos.
In a previous column I said that the country is now facing a double whammy of inflation and rice crisis. These affect the lives of 106 million Filipinos.
Sure, the Trillanes issue needs to be resolved. But Mr. President, please put first things first.
I can understand why the President is peeved at Trillanes. But he should really pay closer attention to issues that affect the lives of Filipinos.
The rice problem cannot be solved just by importing rice, even through a government-to-government deal. It is a problem that has bogged down the best among those in public service.
Now President Duterte warns that the warehouses of rice cartels will be raided because of instances of hoarding. But how can there be raids when the government does not even know what qualifies as hoarding?
The President has given the NFA the go-signal to import some 200,000 metric tons of rice so it could bring its buffer stock to 25 days. But even Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol does not know how much rice local farmers can produce in the wake of frequent typhoons.
In fact, rice production cannot be predicted accurately at any time. Who can say whether there will be enough harvest in November, or there would be no typhoons to damage the crops?
This problem is made worse with the incompetent officials running both the DA and the National Food Authority.
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President Duterte claims that his rape joke was made because he has the right to free expression. This is his right as a Filipino.
Certainly every Filipino can say what he or she wishes. But as a lawyer, the President must know that the right to free expression is not limitless.
This, when he makes those misogynistic jokes—the latest being there was a high number of rape cases in Davao because there were many beautiful women there—he degrades female sensitivities.
The problem is that the people seem to enjoy his jokes. They seem to glorify his indecent language.
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Yesterday I wrote about fake news. I neglected to mention one example—that the late President Corazon Aquino was labeled as an icon of democracy by local and foreign media. The truth is, she was only the beneficiary of the 1986 People Power Revolution.
She was not even at Edsa!
I asked former Defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile why he chose Cory to succeed Marcos, he told me that she was the face of the opposition. This is so far from being an icon of democracy.
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