SC decision on Trillanes to affect co-mutineers, Lorenzana says

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NINO JESUS ORBETA

A Supreme Court decision on Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV’s petition to block the withdrawal of amnesty granted to him will also make an impact on his fellow mutineers who applied for amnesty, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said.

“Similarly situated sila eh but tingnan natin bahala na yung Supreme Court. Kung yung iba tama yung papers, it will be up to the proper authority to determine if tama yun. Yung hindi tama, we have to redo,” he told reporters Monday on the sidelines of the commencement of ceremony of the National Defense College of the Philippines.

“I think nakita ko more than a hundred sila, ilang pages yung pinirmahan ni [Defense Sec. Voltaire] Gazmin,” he said.

He couldn’t immediately say if it was only Trillanes’ application that was missing from the military records.

The defense chief refused to comment on the other technicalities surrounding the case: “Let the Supreme Court decide on that. Ayoko na magsalita. Marami ng conflicting statement na naglalabasan.”

He also admitted that Solicitor General Jose Calida reached out to him mid-August to seek for Trillanes’ amnesty documents.

“He asked me personally by phone to get the amnesty records sa DND at AFP so I provided him… I remember that was Aug. 16,” he told reporters.

“Meron siyang tao na pinapunta to research,” he said, clarifying that it was not only Trillanes’ documents that were looked into but it also included his fellow mutineers.

Lorenzana said he believed that the senator was not singled out by Calida.

The Proclamation 572 signed Aug. 31 stated Trillanes failed to file an application for amnesty and an express admission of guilt for his involvement in two failed mutinies in 2003 and 2007 to protest the alleged corruption during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

It also cited a military certification saying that there was “no available copy” of the senator’s amnesty application from the records of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel, J1. /cbb