Destabilizer Antonio Trillanes IV has dusted off and recycled some worn-out allegations from his shelf of dirty tricks to launch his 2025 campaign for the Senate.
Cunning politicians are using court cases to imprint their names in the public consciousness and escape the Commission on Elections’ early campaigning rule.
Based on the Comelec calendar, the filing of certificates of candidacy won’t be until 8 October while the campaign for national positions won’t start until 11 February.
Trillanes, who was branded Mr. Two Percent due to his poor showing in the last elections, needed a huge bang to spice up his coming bid that came the other day with the filing of plunder raps against his nemeses, former President Rodrigo Duterte and Senator Bong Go.
The charges submitted to the Department of Justice were recycled from 2018 when Go was Special Assistant to the President and were debunked even by the Commission on Audit.
The Davao City projects that Trillanes has used in the complaint all underwent public bidding like all other public infrastructure contracts.
Trillanes is expected to seek a Senate seat in next year’s polls.
Other iffy bets — Senator Koko Pimentel and some left-wing candidates who have long exploited the partylist system — pursued their effort to rescind the Maharlika Investment Fund Act before the Supreme Court, which is considered more of drumbeating for their 2025 candidacies.
Trillanes has not abandoned his role as an iconoclast, besmirching the Philippine Navy after he led several failed military takeover attempts.
His being a senator was memorable due to the use of his legislative prerogatives to destroy former Vice President Jojo Binay. Trillanes’s aim then was to dislodge Binay as a frontrunner in the 2016 presidential race.
As part of the Blue Ribbon subcommittee, Trillanes pulled out all the stops to demolish Binay starting with the allegations of overpriced Makati City Hall building 2, or what was then called derisively the Makati City Hall Parking Building, that ended up with all the political enemies of Binay banding together to bring out mostly manufactured accusations against the Vice President.
Trillanes and his cohorts’ efforts were allowed to extend for more than a year, prompting the public to call it a Senate tt.
Binay succumbed to the unrelenting muckraking and his survey numbers diminished over time. Later, with dwindling financial support, Binay’s presidential aspiration suffered.
Binay then withdrew from the Cabinet of the late President Noynoy Aquino since he perceived that elements in the Palace were behind the demolition job against him.
This fresh Trillanes operation was apparently sparked by the recent announcement of Vice President Sara Duterte that the former president and her two brothers, Baste and Pulong, will battle for Senate seats.
Ranged against three Dutertes, Trillanes is afraid that he will not have a chance in hell at the Senate.
Trillanes is also banking on the International Criminal Court investigation on the war on drugs as another launch pad for his candidacy.
Launching a regurgitated issue against his political adversaries is predicted to backfire on Trillanes because of the still high public confidence in both Duterte and Go.
Trillanes, with his court petition, may just have solidified the two percent of gullible voters who may be the remnants of the shunned yellow mob on his side.
Unfortunately, two percent is far from enough to take him to the Senate.