Real score

Antonio Trillanes is a very confused person. Democracy did not die in the Philippines, as he claims, the day a court in Makati City ordered him arrested. Who does he think he is that democracy would die because of a problem he brought on himself? It is truly amazing how this guy can pander his ego with a straight face.

At no time is democracy more alive and kicking in this country than now. Look around you. Every critic who has anything to say against the administration is able to say it, in language that borders on the libelous, with basis that is most of the time contrived, if not totally nonexistent.

No critic or political opposition is being picked up arbitrarily and detained. The case of Trillanes, and of Leila de Lima before him, are different. There are valid cases against them that courts of law have recognized. Any disagreement with the court action is a matter of opinion and not of fact. That the legal process is at work and that Trillanes submitted to it exposes his lie.

Democracy has nothing to do with the problems of Trillanes. Neither has President Duterte. Duterte has only been president for two years but Trillanes already had problems going back several years. Remember Oakwood and Manila Pen and how he had been all too willing to use violence for no other reason than that he cannot keep his problems to himself?

The problems of Trillanes are all about personality and character. He is the type who loves to dish it out but cannot take it himself. The recent brouhaha he now finds himself in is proof of that. He picked a fight with Jose Calida for initiating the Quo Warranto petition that swept the rug from under Maria Lourdes Sereno, digging up dirt with which he can soil the former.

But Calida is not the wimp Trillanes must have thought he is. Calida went digging for dirt himself. What he found is what got Trillanes in the rut he is in. And Trillanes thinks democracy is dead? How really troubled and confused the guy is. And what an ego to carry around.

The reason Trillanes is in trouble while the rest of the critics are not is because he has some baggage that the others don’t have. His case should therefore be a reassurance to others like Leni Robredo and the rest of the Yellow Army that for as long as they do not have the same baggage of Trillanes, they can be as noisy as they are and still remain free and safe.

For contrary to their misguided beliefs, democracy continues to work in this country. In fact, Philippine democracy is so strong, healthy, and resilient it continues to survive the variously unique ways Filipinos have tried to pull, tug, and reshape it to suit whatever interests suit them for the moment. Even America would not survive the way we personalize democracy.

‘The reason Trillanes is in trouble while the rest of the critics are not is because he has some baggage that

the others don’t have.’