MANILA — A Philippine senator who defied President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on Tuesday, ending a dramatic, weekslong standoff with the authorities after the president revoked an amnesty the senator had received over his role in two military rebellions.
Antonio Trillanes, 47, has been one of the Senate’s most prominent critics of Mr. Duterte’s antidrug crackdown, which has left thousands of dealers, users and, rights advocates say, innocent people dead. He is the second opposition senator to be jailed by the Duterte government.
He was arrested at his Senate office, where he had been holed up since Mr. Duterte announced the arrest order early this month. With him were several opposition senators who protested the police action as an abuse of presidential power.
“Officially, this now shows that we no longer have democracy,” Mr. Trillanes said. “This case goes beyond me. I committed no crime. I was already given an amnesty seven years ago.”
He said it was “clear harassment” by Mr. Duterte against his critics in politics. “He can’t face those who are telling the truth,” Mr. Trillanes said before leaving with the police.
A regional trial court in the Makati financial district of Manila, the capital, ordered the arrest. Mr. Trillanes, who was released on bail of 200,000 pesos, or about $3,700, said that he would follow the legal process “no matter how unjust that warrant may be.”
Senator Risa Hontiveros, another opposition senator, accused the courts of caving in to Mr. Duterte, who she said was trying to intimidate political critics. “It reeks of panic and desperation over the growing opposition to the president’s authoritarian rule,” she said.
Mr. Trillanes, a former naval officer, was among a group of members of the military granted amnesty in 2011 by President Benigno S. Aquino III over their participation in the uprisings. A few weeks ago, Mr. Duterte declared that amnesty invalid and ordered Mr. Trillanes’s arrest.
In 2003, Mr. Trillanes helped to lead about 300 junior officers and enlisted men in a rebellion against the government of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Mr. Aquino’s predecessor, who is now speaker of the House of Representatives and a Duterte ally. The group took over a luxury hotel in Makati to protest alleged corruption in the military, but the bloodless revolt was quickly put down.
Four years later, Mr. Trillanes and other officers on trial for the earlier mutiny walked out of a Manila courtroom and took over another Makati hotel. The siege ended only when the army crashed an armored personnel carrier into the lobby of the building.
Mr. Trillanes ran for the Senate from prison that same year and easily won.
Mr. Trillanes is the second senator to be jailed after challenging Mr. Duterte. The first, Senator Leila de Lima, had accused the president of employing death squads and violating human rights in his antidrug campaign. She was jailed last year on charges that she protected drug dealers while she was justice minister under Mr. Aquino, which she denies.
On the advice of his aides, Mr. Duterte had previously backed down from his arrest order, saying he would let the courts decide. This came after Mr. Trillanes said that senior military commanders stood behind him and were concerned about the order.
But days later, Mr. Duterte openly dared military officers to mount a rebellion against him. He also claimed there had been a plot among military officers, political opponents and communist insurgents to oust him in October.
He never elaborated on that purported threat, but he said he had received the information from a foreign government that was helping him gather intelligence.
Carlos Conde, Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch, said Mr. Trillanes’s arrest was part of Mr. Duterte’s “relentless campaign to silence those who dared to challenge the president’s murderous drug war.”
“Senator Trillanes has proven to be the biggest thorn in the side of President Duterte,” Mr. Conde said.
Mr. Trillanes had also actively supported the investigation of murder complaints related to Mr. Duterte’s drug war that were filed against him at the International Criminal Court, which the Philippines no longer recognizes.
“Trillanes’s arrest today sends a chilling effect among other critics of the Duterte administration,” Mr. Conde said.
Source : Nytimes
