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Friday, March 29, 2024

Robredo cleared of sedition raps

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The Justice department absolved Vice President Leni Robredo and several opposition leaders of sedition but approved the indictment of former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and 10 others for “conspiracy to commit sedition” over an alleged plot to oust President Rodrigo Duterte.

In a 57-page resolution dated Jan. 27 and released last Friday, the department’s panel of prosecutors found probable cause to indict Trillanes, Peter Joemel Advincula alias “Bikoy,” dismissed police official Eduardo Acierto, and Fr. Albert Alejo, Jonnel Sangalang, Yolanda Villuaneva Ong, Fr. Flaviano Villanueva, Vicente Romano III, Joel Saracho, Boom Enriquez and one alias “Monique” for conspiracy to commit sedition.

In a statement, the panel said the “interlocking pieces of proof provide a complete picture of the grand conspiracy between and among some respondents to create hatred or revenge against the President and his family with the end in view of toppling and destabilizing the current administration.”

The prosecutors said Trillanes and his co-respondents committed conspiracy to commit sedition after they caused the online publication of the so-called “Ang Totoong Narcolist” videos where the former senator and his co-respondents insinuated that members of the President’s family and political allies were receiving pay-offs from drug syndicates.

The panel found relevant evidence to the case Advincula’s press conference at the Integrated Bar of the Philippines where he, among others, admitted to being “Bikoy”, the supposed whistleblower featured in the videos, as well as Acierto’s press statement on March 25, 2019, where he accused the President and his family and close associates of supposed links to drugs and drug syndicates.

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The prosecutors also cited the admission by the respondents, especially the allegations of Advincula and a certain admission of Trillanes, “which bolster the existence of a grand conspiracy between and among some respondents to commit the crime of sedition.”

However, the prosecutors dismissed the complaint for sedition, inciting to sedition, cyberlibel, libel, estafa, and obstruction of justice against all the respondents.

The DOJ on Monday formally indicted Trillanes and his co-accused before a Quezon City court for conspiracy to commit sedition and recommended P10,000 bail for their temporary liberty.

Besides Robredo, the prosecutors also cleared opposition senators Risa Hontiveros and Leila de Lima, former senator Paolo Benigno Aquino, the members of the Otso Diretso senatorial slate, lawyers, and some Catholic bishops of all the charges.

“In finding no probable cause for sedition or inciting to sedition, the panel found the element of public and tumultuous uprising wanting,” the DOJ said in a statement.

The Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group had filed a criminal complaint against the respondents’ charges based on allegations by Advincula that they were involved in “Project Sodoma,” an alleged plot to topple Duterte and install Robredo in his place.

Advincula alleged that the “Ang Totoong Narcolist” videos, a series of videos implicating Duterte, his family and Senator Bong Go in the illegal drug trade, were part of Project Sodoma.

Advincula, who claims to be Bikoy, the hooded figure who narrated the videos, is both a respondent and a witness in the sedition complaint.

He surfaced at the Integrated Bar of the Philippines’ headquarters in May 2019 to stand by the allegations made in the videos–only to surrender to the police weeks later to tag the Liberal Party as the mastermind of the series.

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