It looks like Philippine Senator Antonio Trillanes IV’s extended office stay won’t be ending anytime soon.
The embattled politician was arrested yesterday but posted bail and immediately went back to his office in the Senate building, skipping jail time altogether.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that Trillanes left the Senate building in Pasay City at 3pm with National Capital Regional Police Office chief Director Guillermo Eleazar. Eleazar said Trillanes did not even try to resist arrest, The Philippine Star reported.
They went to the Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 150 where the senator posted his bail of PHP200,000 (US$3,687.24).
This, after Judge Elmo Alameda of the same RTC branch ordered his arrest earlier that day.
Trillanes immediately headed back to the Senate and was there by about 5pm.
In a text message to Rappler, he said: “I was advised not to go home yet.”
The senator said he’ll remain in the Senate building while waiting for the ruling of the Makati City RTC Branch 148, where he is facing non-bailable coup d’etat charges.
Apart from the arrest warrant, Judge Alameda also issued a hold departure order against the senator for his involvement in the 2007 Manila Peninsula siege, a coup attempt against then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Before that siege, he was detained in 2003 for the Oakwood Mutiny that also tried to overthrow Arroyo. He remained imprisoned until 2010 when then-President Benigno Aquino III granted him amnesty.
However, last month, President Rodrigo Duterte declared this amnesty void, because Trillanes allegedly failed to file the appropriate application form.
Trillanes denies this but when Judge Alameda asked him to provide a copy of the amnesty application form, his lawyer said the senator couldn’t find it.
Since the revocation of his amnesty three weeks ago, Trillanes has been holed up in his Senate office, where his fellow senators have given him sanctuary.
Trillanes is a fierce Duterte critic, so many see his arrest as the administration’s way to intimidate the opposition.
Apart from Trillanes, Senator Leila de Lima, also a critic of the president, was also controversially arrested in February 2017 and is currently detained in Camp Crame for allegedly extorting money from inmates of the New Bilibid Prisons when she was the country’s secretary of Justice.
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