Court upholds order to arrest Trillanes

The Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 150 has upheld its decision to have Sen. Antonio Trillanes 4th arrested as it junked the lawmaker’s plea to reverse the ruling.Branch 150 Judge Elmo Alameda, who ordered Trillanes arrested in September last year, said the senator failed to prove the existence of an “original” application for amnesty and to explain his failure to produce it.“Since the existence of the duly accomplished application form for amnesty has never been established nor the fact of his admission of guilt of the crime he committed… the substitutionary evidence he presented is considered hearsay evidence and cannot be admitted,” Alameda said in his order which was released yesterday.“In view of all the foregoing, the Omnibus Motion is denied,” he added.Trillanes previously filed a 19-page omnibus motion for reconsideration by way of special appearance through his counsel Reynaldo Robles last October 1, where he asked the court to void its September 25 order for his arrest as it lacked “legal and factual basis.”It said that Branch 150 made a “grave” mistake in issuing an arrest order on the basis of President Rodrigo Duterte’s Proclamation 572 which voided Trillanes’ amnesty ab initio (from the beginning).Alameda ordered Trillanes arrested in September as it found that the senator did not apply for amnesty.The rebellion charges filed against Trillanes in connection with the 2007 Manila Peninsula siege were dismissed in 2011 after he was granted amnesty by President Benigno Aquino.Trillanes lost his appeal a week after leaving for Europe for a series of engagements .In his six-page order, Alameda said the senator was not able to prove through testimonies and documents that he indeed filed for amnesty and that he admitted or recanted previous statements that compromised his admission of guilt.Alameda said Trillanes failed to produce an original copy of his amnesty application form which bears a receiving stamp from the Department of National Defence’s (DND) Amnesty Ad Hoc Committee, which he argued in the rules of court was the “highest available degree of proof.”Without it, Trillanes could not prove his compliance with the amnesty procedures, the court said. “Sen. Trillanes cannot claim exception to this rule since no evidence has been presented that such accomplished application form exists in the files of the DND Ad Hoc Amnesty Committee,” he said.“(Trillanes) failed to satisfactorily prove the (following) predicates: the existence of the original, the loss or destruction of the original or its non-production in court, the unavailability of the original is not due to bad faith on his part,” he added.The judge said the senator’s evidence and testimonies from Armed Forces and DND officials saying he filed for amnesty and admitted guilt were “hearsay.”“The rule requires that the highest available degree of proof must be produced by him to prove the contents thereof especially his claim that he made a narration of his admission of guilt of the crime subject of the application for amnesty,” he added.