Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Senator Antonio Trillanes IV is no longer the lone senator “unhappy” with the leadership of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.
Addressing fresh rumors of a plot against his presidency, Enrile said there were now two senators who are disgruntled with him but couldn’t “face me squarely.”
“I think one or two senators are unhappy about me but they cannot face me squarely and frontally to accuse me to my face,” Enrile told reporters.
If one of them was Trillanes, who’s the other one? “I don’t know who he is. He is not important in my life.”
Enrile again said his oft-repeated line about being ready to be step down as Senate president if the majority of his colleagues wanted him to do so.
“If they have 15 [signatures], I should then already be removed,” Enrile said in reference to the reported 15 senators who supposedly have signed a resolution for his ouster. “I have been waiting for so long. The moment I sat as Senate president, everyday I was waiting for my replacement.”
Enrile said he doesn’t even see the need to ensure the loyalty of his colleagues.
“Why should I be talking to them? I respect their decision,” Enrile said.
Told that the reason why a coup has yet to succeed against him was because there was no one willing to take on the job of being Senate president, Enrile said, “That’s not my fault.”
Enrile said he was seated across President Benigno Aquino when the senators were invited to Malacañang for dinner earlier this week.
“I was invited by the President. I was across him so I know exactly what was being talked about. Nobody was talking there about coup, etc.,” Enrile said. “I have no reason to feel that the President was deceitful or treacherous or anything but if ever there was such a plan, I will not consider it a treachery because we understood each other when I took over the helm of the senate in 2010.”
Enrile recalled that he had dinner with President Aquino, then political trouble shooter Manuel Roxas II and Budget Secretary Florencio Abad at Roxas’ residence in Cubao.
“I was already asked by the majority to take over again as Senate president and I told the President, ‘Anytime, Mr. President, if you want to have your own people to run the Senate, just tell me and I’m ready to quit,” Enrile said. “I don’t think the President has anything to do with this silly rumor that there is a coup.”
Trillanes, after accusing Enrile of railroading the creation of a new province in Camarines Sur, admitted that he was working for Enrile’s ouster.
Enrile denied Trillanes’ allegation and accused the younger senator of impropriety while serving as Aquino’s backchannel envoy to China.