President Rodrigo Duterte cannot unilaterally revoke the amnesty of Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, former Senator Rodolfo Biazon said on Tuesday.
Biazon, who was also a former Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff said revoking an amnesty could only be done with the concurrence of Congress, adding that the authority to grant amnesty is a shared power between the President and Congress.
“The revocation of an amnesty so granted can only be effected, can only be done, can only happen with the other half of the authority, of the power, which is the Congress,” Biazon said in an interview with ABS CBN News Channel.
“The President cannot unilaterally revoke such grant because the basic principle is that the grant of amnesty is absolute. Yung ginagamit ngang term diyan is to forget and to forgive as if everything that have been charged, or all the charges against those being granted amnesty had been obliterated, erased.” Biazon added.
Biazon said that if the amnesty application of Trillanes was put into question, then some agencies might also have committed an error.
The former senator added that if the administration had questioned the grant of amnesty to Trillanes, the administration should also question the other amnesty applications.
On August 31, Duterte issued Proclamation No. 572 revoking the amnesty granted to Trillanes in 2010 citing that it was void from the start because the senator had allegedly failed to file an application for amnesty and did not admit his guilt for participating in the two military uprisings. /muf
READ: Arrest Trillanes–Duterte / WHAT WENT BEFORE: Oakwood Mutiny and Trillanes’ 2nd try to oust Arroyo