Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, the Liberal Party president, on Friday described as “pure political harassment” the inciting to sedition case filed against opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes IV.
This was after Trillanes, who is currently in Vienna, Austria to attend a conference, said he considered the complaint as harassment from the Duterte administration, and vowed to continue standing for his principles.
The former soldier was charged for allegedly urging government troopers to shoot President Rodrigo Duterte.
Another opposition stalwart, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, said Trillanes IV cannot be charged with sedition for something he said during a privilege speech.
“It violates the absolute parliamentary immunity for privilege speeches as established in Article IV, Section 5 of the Constitution,” said Drilon, a former justice secretary.
Pangilinan said from Day 1, the Duterte administration “has shown its intolerance towards dissent and criticism from the opposition and those who disagree with its policies, and this case is part of its efforts to silence and stifle dissent.
“It is anti-democratic and a threat to our freedoms and our democratic rights,” Pangilinan added.
Trillanes vowed to face the cases filed against him by the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption, which were approved by a Pasay city court.
“I’m not like Duterte who’s afraid to face cases. I’ll face this case,” said Trillanes, referring to the decision of the President to withdraw the Philippines’ ratification of the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court.
Duterte is facing charges at the ICC of crimes against humanity over accusations of extrajudicial killings in the pursuit of his war against illegal drugs.
Trillanes noted it is clear that his case “was warped and based on my privilege speech in the Senate which besides having constitutionally guaranteed immunity from suit, I’m also not inciting anyone to do anything.”
“If the purpose of this is to scare me to back away from criticizing Duterte, well, like I said before, the more I’m energized to stand against what’s wrong and evil,” assured Trillanes.
Senator Leila de Lima, detained by the administration on drug charges, chimed in, saying that everybody in the National Prosecution Service of the Department of Justice “is now gunning for promotion and rewards.”
This time, she said it is Pasay City Senior Assistant City Prosecutor Joahna Gabatino-Lim’s turn to gun for her own promotion and to “collect her reward.”
“First it was Aristotle Reyes, the prosecutor who absolved Customs officials and other individuals in the P6.4-billion shabu smuggling case, as well as Kerwin Espinosa, Peter Lim, and Peter Co in their own cases for illegal drug trading,” said de Lima.
She said Reyes was appointed RTC Judge by Duterte and took his oath of office last Feb. 2, 2018, after dismissing the cases against the drug lords.