Reopening of Trillanes’ coup d’état case now up for resolution

The Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 148 might issue a ruling soon on whether or not to reopen the dismissed coup d’état case against Senator Antonio Trillanes IV.

This developed after the court submitted for resolution on Wednesday the motion of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to revive the coup d’état case against Trillanes.

The same motion by the DOJ is also asking for a warrant of arrest against the senator.

READ: Makati court wraps up Trillanes’ coup d’ etat case

Last Tuesday, Trillanes’ camp submitted its formal offer of evidence while the DOJ on Wednesday submitted its comment/opposition.

“The DOJ’s comments/objections revolve around the admissibility of the defense evidence under the rules of court,” Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra told INQUIRER.net in a text message.

“It is the judge who will rule on whether or not to admit Senator Trillanes’ documentary exhibits,” he said.

Amnesty voided

Trillanes is being pressed for leading failed uprisings in the past after President Rodrigo Duterte issued Proclamation 572, revoking his amnesty and ordering his arrest.

Duterte said he voided Trillanes’ amnesty and ordered his arrest because the senator had failed to file a formal amnesty application and acknowledge guilt. Trillanes has strongly denied the President’s claims and has shown defense department documents and news reports to counter them.

Human Rights Watch said Trillanes’ arrest was “part of the persecution of critics of the Duterte administration, the latest in the relentless campaign to silence those who dared to challenge the president’s murderous ‘drug war.'”

Duterte has long expressed anger against Trillanes, who has accused him of large-scale corruption, involvement in illegal drugs and extrajudicial killings in an anti-drug crackdown that has left more than 4,800 suspects dead since the president took office in 2016. Duterte has denied the allegations.

Trillanes, 47, was jailed for more than seven years for involvement in at least three Army uprisings, including a 2003 mutiny against then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when he and other young officers rigged part of a shopping center in the Makati financial district with bombs and took over an upscale residential building.

Trillanes used the military budget hearing at the Senate to ask Armed Forces chief Gen. Carlito Galvez whether he had formally applied for amnesty. The military chief cited a former military amnesty officer as stating she had administered an oath to Trillanes but that the senator’s amnesty papers never reached the military’s personnel office, called J1.

“Josefa Berbigal is the one who administered your oath,” Galvez told Trillanes. “Apparently sir, there (are) some lapses so the documents were never brought to J1, which is basically the repository of all the documents.”

When the government’s solicitor-general inquired about Trillanes’ amnesty documents recently, Galvez said a military personnel officer “did not find any paper and certified that there was none.”

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque dismissed Galvez’s statement in a news conference. “It doesn’t matter, he is not a lawyer,” Roque said of Galvez and stressed that Trillanes has failed to show his original amnesty application papers. “It’s the best evidence.”

Oust plot

Duterte has also accused Trillanes, without showing evidence, of plotting with other opposition politicians, including the Liberal Party, and communist rebels to oust him. Trillanes and opposition groups have dismissed the claim as a lie and asked Duterte to focus instead on addressing poverty, inflation, rice shortages, traffic jams and a decline in the value of the peso currency.

Asked by Liberal Party president, Sen. Francis Pangilinan, if there was such a rebel-opposition alliance, Galvez replied, “Sir, none, sir.”

Galvez himself has been linked to a failed coup attempt in 1989 as a young officer. He was detained but was later granted an amnesty. With a report from AP/ee

READ: Trillanes ‘leaving fate to God’ amid looming resolution on coup d’état case