THE Court of Appeals (CA) has upheld the order issued by the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Makati City denying the plea of the government to issue an arrest warrant and hold departure order against opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes in connection with the coup d’etat case filed against him in 2003.
In a 67-page decision penned by Associate Justice Edwin Sorongon, the CA’s Special Eleventh Division dismissed the petition filed by the government through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) seeking the reversal of the orders issued by Makati RTC Branch 148 Presiding Judge Andres Bartolome Soriano on October 22, 2018 and November 22, 2018.
The CA held that the petitioner failed to show grave abuse of discretion on the part of Judge Soriano in issuing the assailed orders.
While he upheld the validity of President Duterte’s Proclamation 572, which revoked the amnesty granted to Trillanes, Soriano held that the coup d’etat case has been dismissed since September 21, 2011 by virtue of Proclamation 75 which was issued by former President Benigno Simeon Aquino III granting Trillanes’s plea for amnesty.
He said based on established doctrine, a final and executory judgment can no longer be reversed.
The judge explained that his court was obliged to review the case based on the resolution of the Supreme Court last September 11, 2018.
In the said order, the Court denied the plea Trillanes for the issuance of an injunction to enjoin authorities from arresting him following President Duterte’s nullification of the amnesty.
At the same time, the Court said the trial courts in Makati City should be first allowed to hear and resolve the pleadings filed by the DOJ and Trillanes with regard to the legality of Proclamation 572.
Proclamation 572 specifically revoked the Department of National Defense Ad Hoc Committee Resolution 2 issued on January 31, 2011 insofar as it granted amnesty to Trillanes in line with Aquino’s Proclamation 75.
President Duterte declared as “void ab initio” the grant of amnesty to Trillanes under Proclamation 75 for his supposed failure to file the official amnesty application form and expressly admitted his guilt for
the crimes he committed.
But, even if the case has yet to be resolved with finality, Judge Soriano said the DOJ’s motion would still have to be dismissed due to the failure of the DOJ to present evidence that would contradict the claim of eyewitnesses presented by the senator to prove that he filed his application for amnesty in which he admitted his guilt for his participation in the Oakwood mutiny.
The CA agreed with Judge Soriano’s ruling which affirmed the validity of Proclamation 572, saying that “there is nothing in the 1987 Constitution which prohibits the President to revoke the grant of a conditional amnesty if he finds that the grantee failed to comply with the conditions thereof.”
“Proclamation No. 572 is a valid exercise by the President of his Constitutional power of control over all executive departments, bureaus, and offices. This has been succinctly defined by the Supreme Court as essentially the power to alter or modify or nullify or set aside what a subordinate officer had done in the performance of his duties and to substitute the judgment of the former with that of the latter,” the appellate court added.
Furthermore, the CA held that Proclamation 572 does not violate Trillanes’s right to due process and equal protection of the law as the said proclamation directs the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police to “employ all lawful means” to apprehend the former senator.
However, the Court gave weight to the findings of the trial court that Trillanes complied with all the conditions of Proclamation 75, particularly the filing of an official amnesty application form and expressly admitting his guilt for the crimes he committed.
“Taking into consideration all of the evidence presented, the Court holds that the fact of private respondent’s actual filing of his application for amnesty is duly established in this case per the judicious factual findings of public respondent,” the CA noted.
Concurring with the ruling were Associate Justices Perpetua Susan Atal-Paño and Raymond Reynold Lauigan.
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