Magdalo fires back; dares Duterte to sign bank waiver

Senator Antonio Trillanes IV answers questions in an ambush interview before the start of the Senate Hearing on Civil Service . President Rodrigo Duterte revoked the 2010 amnesty granted to Trillanes, “effective immediately.”
INQUIRER PHOTO/JOAN BONDOC

Amid the impending arrest of Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, the Magdalo partylist renewed the senator’s challenge on President Rodrigo Duterte to sign a bank secrecy waiver to show that he doesn’t possess hidden wealth.

“Instead of signing a highly questionable and probably unconstitutional Presidential Proclamation hoping to sow fear, why not sign a bank secrecy waiver and earn the respect of every Filipino. If the President did not have P2-billion worth of bank transactions in his BPI Julia Vargas account, Senator Trillanes will voluntary walk to jail,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Hindi na kailangan ng presidente lumabas na duwag at sinungaling!” it added.

The partylist was established by the Samahang Magdalo, a group that had links to the Magdalo Group, which led the Oakwood Mutiny and Manila Peninsula siege with both efforts to remove then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo from her post.

In his Proclamation 527, Duterte ordered Trillanes’ amnesty revoked for allegedly failing to apply for amnesty and refusal to admit his crimes over the Oakwood Mutiny in 2003 and the Manila Peninsula Siege in 2007.

READ: Duterte revokes Trillanes amnesty, orders his arrest 

The group insisted that the mutineer-turned-senator actually filed an application at the Department of Defense and admitted his guilt, citing a 2011 video taken at the DND.

“Contrary to the lies about the reasons for the revocation of the Amnesty given to Senator Trillanes, there was an application form filed at DND, and there was an admission of guilt. In a video taken in 2011 at the DND, a copy of his application form was shown and as regards the admission of guilt, ‘we are man enough to admit we commited mistakes… we faced the consequences… It was easy for us to do that,’ said Senator Trillanes,” the group noted.

Magdalo then called Duterte’s move a cowardly act, adding that an amnesty cannot be revoked without the concurrence of the Congress.

“This is nothing but a cowardly act by a President who wants the intoxicating feeling of people fearing him. No presidential proclamation can nullify an amnesty that has an effect of an existing law as concurred by Congress,” it said. /jpv

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