Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo (left) and former senator Antonio Trillanes IV. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS
MANILA, Philippines — Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo slammed former senator Antonio Trillanes IV for saying that President Rodrigo Duterte had a hand in his referral of the request for executive clemency of rapist-murderer Antonio Sanchez.
“Administration critic Antonio Trillanes IV has once again appeared before the cameras to vilify my name by saying that I am untouchable in the current administration and worse, dragging PRRD into the issue by insinuating the innuendo that my referral to the Bureau of Pardons and Parole, which he took to mean as a recommendation to the grant of the application of Mr. Antonio Sanchez’s application for executive clemency (obviously adopting the malicious and wrongful meaning to the perfunctory act I performed), had the blessings of the President,” Panelo said in a statement.
“I should by now be used to the vilification binge of the former military renegade whose departure from the Senate was a fresh wind blowing into a suffocated environment,” he added.
Panelo reiterated that there are “no sacred cows” under the Duterte administration after Trillanes said the firing of Faeldon was just a “damage control.”
“Just so that there may be some gullible souls who may have been deceived by the vilifying remarks of Mr. Trillanes, we reiterate: There are no sacred cows under the Duterte Administration,” he said.
Panelo said “our people have witnessed that there are no Kaibigan, Kabarilan, and Kaklase (KKK) in this Administration which the previous dispensation is associated with,” an apparent allusion to former president Benigno Aquino’s presidential appointees who were his friend, former classmate or shooting buddy.
“All appointees of the incumbent President, including this representation,” he said, “are on their toes as PRRD has zero tolerance against malfeasance and corruption. The Chief Executive does not mince words in giving walking papers to officials involved in such practices.”
“I have exercised a high degree of professionalism and full transparency in my three years in serving the government. As the President has said, what I did was not just the correct way but the only and correct way of handling the matter,” he said.
“I have effectively inhibited from the concern of the daughter of Mr. Sanchez with respect to the case of the latter by passing the same to the appropriate office with an official correspondence,” Panelo added.
“Res ipsa loquitur. The thing speaks for it self,” he further said,” saying “there can be no clearer conscience than mine, on this matter.”
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1160571/parole-board-chief-panelo-referred-sanchez-pardon-bid-to-me