Duterte dares military officers start rebellion
President MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines on Tuesday challenged military veterans and serving officers who oppose him to mount a rebellion, a day after the head of the armed forces warned soldiers not to take sides in the president’s standoff with a senator he has threatened to arrest.
The senator, Antonio Trillanes, a former naval officer who is a fierce critic of Duterte, took part in two brief military uprisings against one of Duterte’s predecessors more than 10 years ago. Last week, after Duterte revoked an amnesty the senator had received for those incidents and ordered his arrest, Trillanes said he had “across the board” support in the military but that he was trying to prevent a revolt.
“I am challenging Magdalo to start now,” Duterte said Tuesday, referring to Trillanes’ political party, which is led mostly by former military officers. “Just make sure that the soldiers and the generals are yours. Let’s show Filipinos what you really want.”
Duterte’s televised statement came hours after the Supreme Court ruled on a petition from Trillanes, who has been holed up at his Senate office for more than a week, to quash the arrest order. It declined to do so, instead referring the matter to lower courts.
But it also said it had taken note of a pledge by the armed forces and the police not to arrest the senator unless a warrant was issued by a court, rather than the president. The senator’s lawyer welcomed the ruling.
The Philippines has a long history of military unrest. On Tuesday, Manila, the capital, was gripped by rumors of unusual troop movements in the hours leading up to the Supreme Court’s ruling, but the military categorically denied it.
Duterte had scheduled a news conference for Tuesday afternoon, but he instead went on live television for a one-on-one conversation with a legal adviser. He dared those in the military who supported Trillanes and former President Benigno S. Aquino III, who granted Trillanes’s amnesty in 2010, to attempt a revolt.
Duterte also claimed, without offering evidence, to have a military intelligence report alleging that Trillanes had been conspiring with communist insurgents to oust him. He said the report was from a “foreign country sympathetic to us.”
Trillanes has been one of Duterte’s most prominent critics, assailing the president for his violent war on the drug trade, which has left thousands of Filipinos dead. Opposition lawmakers said the president’s decision ... to unilaterally revoke the senator’s amnesty and order his arrest was the latest example of Duterte’s tightening grip on the Philippines.
On Monday, Gen. Carlito G. Galvez Jr., the top commander of the country’s 130,000-member military, denied that there had been “rumblings” of discontent within the force.
“I am nonetheless reminding every soldier, airman, sailor and marine not to meddle or take part in partisan politics,” Galvez said. “Our loyalty is to the constitution.”
While the Supreme Court did not issue an injunction against Duterte’s arrest order on Tuesday, as Trillanes had asked it to do, the court said it took “cognizance of the pledge by the military and police not to arrest the senator until a final ruling” was made by a lower court.