(Eagle News) — The Department of Justice maintained Senator Antonio Trillanes IV was still facing a coup d’état case despite a Makati court issuing an order dismissing the same.
In a statement, Acting Prosecutor General Richard Anthony Fadullon said this was because the amnesty granted to Trillanes, on which the dismissal of the case was supposed to be anchored on, was void ab initio, or was as if it never existed in the first place.
“Thus the case reverts back to its last status which is for promulgation of judgement,” Fadullon said.
He said in the meantime, they have sought the arrest of Trillanes “to comply with the directive in Proclamation 572 and to prevent confusion on the matter of his being arrested by our peace officers.”
Under Proclamation 572, President Rodrigo Duterte said the amnesty granted to Trillanes for his role in the Oakwood mutiny and Manila Peninsula siege in 2003 and 2007 respectively was void, as he did not comply with the minimum requirements for the same.
For this, Duterte cited a certification of the Armed Forces of the Philippines that said there was no available file of Trillanes’ application for the amnesty in the first place.
He also noted that Trillanes did not make an express admission of guilt for the crimes committed.
Trillanes has refuted this, but Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said what was needed was an express admission of guilt for the crime of coup d’etat, and not just for the crime of uprising, as the elements of both were distinct from each other. Moira Encina
