Hontiveros: Trillanes arrest part of Duterte’s ‘grand plan’ to wipe out opposition

Hontiveros noted that Duterte’s move is “unconstitutional” due to the absence of the concurrence from the legislature.

“President Rodrigo Duterte’s revocation of the amnesty granted to Senator Antonio Trillanes is unconstitutional, lacking concurrence from the legislature. While the Executive has the power to grant amnesty, it must have the concurrence of a majority of all the members of Congress. The same goes with revocation,” Hontiveros said in a statement.

“This signals the growing crackdown on the political opposition and the President’s further slide into full authoritarian rule. Together with the unjust incarceration of Senator Leila de Lima and the sham electoral protest against Vice President Leni Robredo hanging like a Damocles sword over her head, I fear that all these form part of President Duterte’s grand plan to wipe out the opposition and consolidate complete political power unto himself,” she added.

The senator also said that it is “a step back for our attempts at national unity, healing and reconciliation after a nine-year presidency marred by massive electoral cheating, large-scale corruption and extrajudicial killings of progressive dissidents.”

Hontiveros then called on “all democratic and progressive forces” to denounce what she called an “intensifying state persecution against the opposition movement.”

“We will not cower in fear. We will continue to resist. President Duterte can put us all in jail, but he can never jail the resistance,” she stressed.

Signing Proclamation 572, 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. /muf

READ: Duterte revokes Trillanes amnesty, orders his arrest