MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte said he cannot refuse the request of Solicitor General Jose Calida to initiate the revocation of the amnesty granted to Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.
“How can I refuse? He is the government lawyer … I have to enforce the law,” Duterte said in a speech at the Davao City Airport upon arrival from a trip to Jordan.
The President admitted on Saturday that Calida initiated the research on the circumstances of the granting of amnesty to Trillanes after the former Navy officer’s involvement in coup attempts in 2003 and 2007.
On Aug. 31 Duterte signed Presidential Proclamation 572, which declared the amnesty void for the alleged failure of the opposition senator – and one of Duterte’s fiercest critics – to comply with “minimum requirements to qualify.”
Early last week Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman Colonel Edgard Arevalo admitted that Calida started the inquiry that triggered the review of Trillanes’ amnesty.
Arevalo, along with Department of National Defense’s spokesman Arsenio Andolong and Internal Audit Service chief Ronald Patrick Rubin, admitted they were not familiar with the procedure that took place before they assumed their current posts.
Earlier Justice secretary Menardo Guevarra also said the review of Trillanes’ amnesty “might have been” carried out by the Office of the Solicitor General.
Calida repeatedly refused to comment on the issue, insisting on lawyer-client privileged communication.
Trillanes and Calida had been at odds since the former moved to investigate possible conflict of interest in Calida and his family’s security agency’s multimillion-peso contracts with government agencies.
Calida sought a temporary restraining order barring Trillanes from conducting a legislative inquiry into Vigilant Investigative and Security Agency, Inc.’s contracts with state offices.
Trillanes has asked the Supreme Court to declare the Proclamation 572 illegal.
Upon arrival from Jordan, Duterte said he would abide by the decision of the high court. (GMA News)
