MANILA, 7 February 2007 — A navy officer who led a failed coup attempt in 2003 was given a jail furlough yesterday to file his candidacy papers for a Senate seat in the May general elections. Apparently banking on name-recall, Lt. Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes registered using the nickname “Magdalo,” the name of his group, which was taken from a group of Filipino revolutionaries during the Spanish regime more than a century ago.
Granted a pass of only three hours by the Makati Regional Trial Court, the handsome 35-year-old officer did not waste time shaking hands with employees and onlookers who mobbed him at the Commission on Elections headquarters in Manila.
Trillanes, who is facing coup charges and court-martial for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, said if he gets elected, he would work “to implement reforms to eradicate corruption, maintain peace and order and alleviate poverty.”
Trillanes said he was ready to run as an independent should the fractious United Opposition decide not to include him in its Senate slate.
Trillanes led some 300 junior officers and men, who took over an upscale apartment-hotel in Manila’s posh Makati financial district in 2003, demanding the ouster of Arroyo.
Their attempt to topple the government was quashed in a day after Arroyo gave an ultimatum for their surrender.
Twelve of the 24 seats in the Senate, over 200 seats of the House of Representatives and hundreds of local positions will be up for grabs in the elections in May.
Another coup plotter, Gregorio Honasan, a former army colonel who once served as senator, is also expected to file his candidacy today, his lawyer Daniel Gutierrez said.
Gutierrez said his client was willing to run as an administration candidate.
Honasan was involved in a series of failed bloody coups against former President Corazon Aquino in the late 80s and is awaiting trial for his alleged involvement in last February’s failed bid to oust Arroyo.
Under Philippine law a person can stand for election as long as they have not been convicted of a serious offense. Neither candidate has been convicted by a court. Asked how he would campaign while still detained at army headquarters, Trillanes said he would canvass “through my supporters, friends and relatives.”
Herman Laurel, a columnist and supporter of ousted President Joseph Estrada, said that he and other supporters of Trillanes are maintaining the navy officer’s account in the popular social networking website Friendster for his campaign.
Villar Snubs Arroyo Ticket
With senatorial aspirants crisscrossing party lines days before the deadline for the filing of their certificates of candidacy, Senate President Manuel Villar ruled out the possibility of his running under the administration ticket.
The re-electionist senator, who heads the chamber that has been at odds with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, said he would either be with the opposition slate or with a third or middle force he was still trying to form with fellow senators eligible to run for another six-year term.
“I’m either joining a middle force or UNO,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Monday, referring to ousted President Joseph Estrada’s United Opposition, which has so far announced eight candidates for the 12 positions up for grabs in the Senate. Though he did not call for Arroyo’s resignation unlike his predecessor Sen. Franklin Drilon, Villar declined to run with the administration over differences in principle. He earlier said he could not run under the ticket of the administration, which has espoused the abolition of the Senate through charter change.
Villar said he could run independently of any political alliance together with his colleagues — Sens. Joker Arroyo, Ralph Recto and Francis Pangilinan — who are collectively known as the Wednesday Group.
Villar, listed No. 24 in Forbes magazine’s richest people in Asia with $110 million in net worth, heads the Nacionalista Party, which counts Recto and opposition Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano of Pateros-Taguig as its senatorial candidates.
Collapse of Third Force
Sen. Edgardo Angara said the attempt to put up a “third force,” a slate of incumbent senators, had collapsed.
“Our third force has collapsed. The Wednesday Group may have also collapsed,” Angara, head of Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, told reporters.
He said he was consulting with party mates on Arroyo’s offer for him to join the administration’s Team Unity ticket.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, meanwhile, advised President Arroyo to “watch her back” after she invited Angara to run under the administration-backed “unity ticket.”
“You don’t know Angara’s true color,” said Lacson, who has a long-standing conflict stemming from Angara’s decision to back the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. to be the opposition presidential candidate in 2004 instead of Lacson.
Angara countered by disparaging Lacson as a petty cop. “We should not listen to those petty comments coming from a petty policeman, that’s close to the gutter,” GMA News quoted Angara as saying.
Lacson was chief of the national police during the presidency of Joseph Estrada, which was cut short in 2001 when he was ousted by a military-backed revolt.
Marcoses
Meanwhile, the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos has rejected an offer of the Arroyo administration for him or his sister, Rep. Imee Marcos, to join the so-called unity ticket, saying political ideologies are irreconcilable.
Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., governor of Ilocos Norte province in the north, said he could not see himself switching to the administration, which he said he has been criticizing. “We’ve been opposed to the administration in the last six years. Joining them suddenly is... like you’re saying ‘I was wrong, you were right,’” he said.
He said he did not want to be grouped with known senatorial candidates who had been accused of switching parties because they were not accommodated in the other party. “It is a question of ideology and belief. (The problem with Philippine politics is that) ideology and causes never come into the political process that is why changing parties means nothing,” Marcos said.
Presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor earlier offered Marcos and his sister, Imee, a place in the unity slate of the administration as part of reconciling Edsa forces under Arroyo’s 10-point agenda.
Defensor said he also welcomed the possibility of negotiating with the Marcos family. (With reports by the Inquirer News Service & Agencies)
