Trillanes bares peace and order, anti-corruption, poverty programs

Programs on peace and order, anticorruption, and anti-poverty are on a long list of advocacies of the leader of a mutiny staged in 2003 aimed at changing the the lives of the Filipino people.

Now that he is running for vice president without a presidential candidate under the 108-year-old Nacionalista Party, (NP) he hopes to carry them out should he win in the 2016 elections.

Sen. Antonio “Sonny” Trillanes IV, speaking to Manila Bulletin editors in a round-table interview the other day, enumerated a number of “how-to’s” that, he said, will strengthen his three advocacies for solutions to peace and order problems, corruption, and poverty.

To fight poverty, Trillanes called for the the development of engines of growth like agriculture and tourism. Supported by infrastructure and peace and order, tourism will bring more tourists, create more jobs, and attract more investments, he said, he senator said the Philippines has more beautiful beaches than those offered by some other countries who get triple the number of visitors every year.

A major factor in attracting tourists is peace and order, Trillanes said. The senator, who led the Oakwood Mutiny in 2003 involving about 300 soldiers, said that the peace and order problem can be solved by strengthening the armed forces and training the local police.

The recent kidnappings of foreigners in the south have dampened tourist arrivals, he said.

“Reinstate the death penalty, and create special courts for drug cases,” he said.

As for the secessionist movement, the senator urged the re-opening off peace talks without pre-conditions. “We need to talk to all the stakeholders, all the groups involved in the peace process,” he said.

“I am a soldier. I am a public servant who focuses on getting the job done,” he said. Trillanes has co-authored 52 laws. Among the laws that he has supported are the AFP Modernization Law, increasing the salaries and allowances of uniformed personnel, and the law increasing the burial assistance for veterans.

He has also co-authored a bill which proposes moving the capital city elsewhere where it can be developed from the ground up. “That will decongest Metro Manila since people will not go there because there are jobs there,” he said, This will help solve the traffic problem in Metro Manila, which has earned the title of having the worst traffic condition in the world, he added.

The senator was only 32 when he led the mutiny, where he presented a long list of complaints related to conditions military men face. He won as senator in the 2007 election. “It gave me the opportunity to serve the country,” he said.

And then came the question, “Are you less angry now?” Sen. Trillanes had a quick reply: “I have learned how to smile.”

That must have come with an effort. He said he started getting politicized when he took his master’s degree years ago and he examined corruption issues. His thesis was on “A Study of Corruption in the Philippine Navy.” It was followed by a research paper on “Corruption in the Philippine Navy Procurement System.”

It is no wonder that his third advocacy is on anti-corruption. He plans to set up an Anti-Corruption Agency in the government, to investigate information on corruption in all agencies of the government. In the past months, Trillanes was in the limelight when he sat as a member of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee that investigated the alleged corruption charges against Vice President Jejomar Binay and members of his family.

“I will present myself to the people and offer my services and let the voters decide,” he added.