Those using failed putschist Antonio Trillanes IV to advance their political agenda are hoping to get their money’s worth, as the destabilization expert seeks to use his latest gimmick as a springboard to the Senate in next year’s polls.
In filing a string of recycled cases against former President Rodrigo Duterte, his former officials and family members, Trillanes was only reprising his role of grabbing public attention to salvage his failed ambitions.
On several occasions, he was proven to be nothing more than an operator getting his orders from overlords in the power sphere.
Prior to the 2016 elections, after Trillanes’ campaign to demolish then Vice President Jojo Binay who was gunning for the presidency in a year-long inquisition before a Senate blue ribbon “subcommittee,” then Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile exposed the sinister intentions of the rabble rouser.
For the first time in the inquiry that lasted 25 sessions strategically spread out over a year, Enrile attended the hearing to prove that most of the allegations raised were without basis.
The presence of Enrile and the questions he raised based on the proper and legal way of the presentation of evidence proved that the whole Trillanes affair was a waste of the Senate’s time and was fueled by political motivation since he was also angling to get a crack at the vice presidency.
Binay did not lend his presence to the proceedings since it had been his consistent claim that the main interest of the Senate panel, which was made up of three senators led by Trillanes, was to smear him and frustrate his candidacy.
To counter Enrile, Trillanes vowed to come up with new revelations that never came to pass.
Trillanes instead presented stacks of documents as he has done in his recent filing of complaints against Duterte and company.
The extended subcommittee hearings, in the end, failed to produce a single piece of legislation or even a credible proposal which proved that it was held only to create hype.
The only output of the inquiry, which at one point was held almost weekly mostly on recycled issues against Binay and members of his family, was a partial report that accused Binay of having maintained a system of corruption when he was mayor of Makati City.
Since the report was partial, it never reached the plenary for the scrutiny of all the senators and was not subjected to a debate.
Later, it was revealed that Trillanes’s objective with the unfinished report was to prevent it from reaching the plenary for debate where it would have had a good chance of being rejected.
The then Yellow Muse, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, gobbled up all the accusations against Binay and made them the basis for cases that did not progress in the anti-graft court.
Trillanes has a solid background of creating trouble for the government and high officials which should be a warning to those who deal with him.
His being the nemesis of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo catapulted him to the Senate after he led several failed military takeover attempts.
The plotter was elected while in detention but through the efforts of his colleagues in the Senate, led by Enrile, he was temporarily released during the term of President Noynoy Aquino. Aquino later granted him amnesty.
Still later, Trillanes bit Enrile’s hand with his allegations about the veteran public servant backing a gerrymandering bill.
Incidentally, Duterte turned down Trillanes when he volunteered to be his vice president in the former’s successful 2016 presidential effort.
Those handling Trillanes must watch out for the viper’s next target.