Photo: Jonathan Cellona of ABS-CBN News " width="100%" />
Senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s legal woes just keep mounting.
Yesterday, the Pasay Prosecutor’s Office charged the Filipino lawmaker for inciting to sedition for statements he made in September.
The complaint was filed by Commissioner Nasser Marohomsalic of the Philippine Center on Islam and Democracy; Department of Labor and Employment Undersecretary Jacinto Paras; Commissioner Manuelito Lina of the Philippine Anti-Corruption Commission; and lawyer Eligio Mallari, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported.
The case was filed before the Pasay City Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 44 last Feb. 11, ABS-CBN News reported.
The allegedly seditious comments were made by Trillanes after President Rodrigo Duterte revoked his amnesty via Proclamation No. 572 because the lawmaker allegedly failed to file the necessary application form.
Duterte’s proclamation called on the military and police to arrest the senator, one of his fiercest critics. Trillanes holed himself up in his Senate office to avoid being arrested.
The complainants said that Trillanes made the following statements in media interviews at the Senate in reaction to the voiding of his amnesty: “I will face this…I have been energized. I will not be afraid, I will not leave.”
In a separate statement made by Trillanes that was addressed to the military and police, he said: “Duterte will not be there for long, please do not do anything illegal or unconstitutional.”
The complainants alleged that such statements were equivalent to inciting to sedition, and interpreted Trillanes’ statement as a secret call for the military to launch a coup. The prosecutors supported their allegations.
The Pasay Prosecutor’s Office said that Trillanes’ statements had a tendency to “incite feelings of hatred and distrust toward the President of the Philippines and the government of the Philippines that he represented.” The office also said that Trillanes’ words created the “danger of [a] breach of peace and public order.”
The prosecutors also rejected Trillanes’ defense that his statements were covered by parliamentary immunity.
Trillanes’ arraignment is scheduled for June 4, according to his lawyer Reynaldo Robles.
This is the second sedition case for Trillanes.
He was ordered arrested in September by the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 150 for his role in the 2007 Manila Peninsula siege, a case that was revived after his amnesty was revoked. Trillanes is currently out on bail for this case.
But his legal worries do not end there. In January, he was charged with grave threats for allegedly threatening Paras, one of the complainants, when they saw each other at the Senate.
He was also sued for libel by the president’s son, former Davao City vice mayor Paolo Duterte and son-in-law, lawyer Manases Carpio. For this case, he even flew to Davao City to post bail.
Duterte also ordered an investigation into allegedly dubious deals made by Trillanes’ parents with the Philippine Navy.
Trillanes and Duterte have not been in good terms as early as the 2016 presidential campaign when the senator alleged that Duterte had billions of pesos in his bank account that could have possibly come from the drug trade. Trillanes has filed a Senate resolution last year seeking an investigation of the alleged accounts, but nothing has come out of it.
