3 blunders and the anti-Duterte plot

THE attack of Trillanes’s amnesty has been a monumental fiasco: blunder on data research, blunder on legal maneuver and blunder on public relations st r at egy.

I said that here earlier. And others who neither hate nor love President Duterte are saying it too.

Instead of dumping Antonio Trillanes IV into a dustbin of irrelevance, the moves against the lastterm senator have boosted his political stock. A few people are even floating the idea that the Oakwood Mutiny and Manila Peninsula Siege coup plotter might be contender in the next presidential race, in 2022 or earlier in the election for transition president if the shift to federalism would push through.

Unexpected results

Maybe an exaggeration of what Trillanes has accomplished. But the current smear-anddestroy campaign against him, capped with moves to strip him of his amnesty grant and put him back to prison, has boosted his popularity. Suddenly, he has become the most visible and voluble person standing to call out Duterte’s alleged excesses.

The results were not quite what the president expected. He signed Proclamation # 572 last Aug. 31, then left two days later for his Israel and Jordan visits. When he returned last Sept. 7, Trillanes was not in jail. Instead, he has had the full glare of media att ent i on.

Trillanes went to the Supreme Court while state lawyers sought two Regional Trial Courts to revive the cases of coup d’etat and rebellion against him. That, as the military prepared to activate the court martial against the former Navy lieutenant.

Tide of public opinion

But what turned back the multi-pronged assault? Information has poured that (1) the factual basis for revoking the amnesty grant, explicitly stated in the document, could be false as Trillanes, by news records of the event, appear to have complied with the