MANILA, 16 June 2007 — Now that he is a senator, former navy officer Antonio Trillanes yesterday said he will try to accomplish the mission for which he is imprisoned through the legislature.
“This is a victory for the Filipino people,” said Trillanes, a lieutenant senior grade and navy gunner who staked his bright military career by leading a mutiny in 2003 in a bid to end corruption in the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
He is facing coup charges along with several other military and police officials.
For a start, Trillanes said, he will work with others in cleaning up the electoral system, which a group of international volunteers who monitored the country’s May 14 midterm polls described as worse than Afghanistan’s.
“For this country to move on, we must cleanse the electoral process and put erring officials in jail,” said the 35-year-old Trillanes, referring to the practice of government functionaries in cheating for the highest bidder.
Nobody should tamper with the elections, one of the pillars of a strong democratic country, he said.
Trillanes arrived an hour late for the ceremony at the Comelec Office under heavy military escort from Marine headquarters in Fort Bonifacio, where he is detained.
The delay was caused by the earlier refusal of the military to let him leave detention, despite permission from the Makati regional trial court where he is being tried on coup d’etat charges.
He was later allowed to go, handcuffed to two military escorts, on orders of military chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr.
Trillanes is the 11th senator-elect in the May 14 elections to be proclaimed and the youngest senator of the 14th Congress.
Despite campaigning in jail with a meager budget, he garnered 11,138,067 votes, excluding those from fraud-tainted Maguindanao province.
The 12th and last Senate slot is being contested by Aquilino Pimentel III of the opposition and Juan Miguel Zubiri of the administration.
Trillanes is the fourth graduate of the Philippine Military Academy in the Senate. The others are former military chief of staff Rodolfo Biazon, former national police chief Panfilo Lacson, and former army Col. Gregorio Honasan.
Trillanes later told a television station that he supported moves to re-open a congressional investigation into allegations of fraud in the 2004 presidential elections.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been accused of cheating her way to victory in those elections.
Trillanes, however, could lose his seat in the Senate if the civilian court finds him guilty of leading a coup and sends him to jail.
Arroyo’s political enemies now have full control of the Senate but her allies retain a majority in the House of Representatives. (With input from Inquirer News Service & Agencies)
