Senator Francis Pangilinan–EDWIN BACASMAS
Opposition Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan on Tuesday stressed that the revocation of an amnesty requires concurrence of both chambers of Congress as provided by the Constitution.
Pangilinan issued the statement after President Rodrigo Duterte, in a proclamation, ordered the revocation of the amnesty granted to Senator Antonio Trillanes IV in 2010.
Pangilinan also said that the proclamation is a clear political persecution against Trillanes, one of the President’s most active critics.
“Instead of addressing the rice crisis now engulfing the nation, this government is more concerned with silencing its critics using illegal and unlawful methods. We stand by Sen. Trillanes, and will use all legal means to fight this illegal and abusive exercise of presidential power,” he said.
“The revocation of the Proclamation granting amnesty to Senator Antonio Trillanes IV is a clear persecution against one of the administration’s toughest critics. It has no justifiable basis and done to silence Sen. Trillanes, who in the past has exposed to the public possible wrongdoings of the President,” he added.
Pangilinan noted that Proclamation 75, which was issued by former President Benigno Aquino III that granted amnesty to Trillanes in 2010, was concurred by Congress and therefore “could not be easily set aside by the whims of one man.”
“The Constitution provides that an amnesty proclamation requires the concurrence of both Houses of Congress and therefore the said revocation requires our concurrence and is therefore not immediately executory,” Pangilinan said.
“Absent our concurrence any arrest is illegal. We urge the Armed Forces and the PNP not to enforce an illegal arrest,” he added.
In his Proclamation 572 signed on Aug.31, Duterte ordered the revocation of the amnesty due to Trillanes’ failure to apply for amnesty and refusal to admit his crimes over the Oakwood Mutiny in 2003 and the Manila Peninsula Siege in 2007.
Duterte also ordered the military and the police “to employ all lawful means to apprehend” the coup leader “so that he can be recommitted to the detention facility where he had been incarcerated for him to stand trial for the crimes he is charged with.” /je
READ: Duterte revokes Trillanes amnesty, orders his arrest