Senator Antonio Trillanes IV is noted as the only senator who was elected while detained awaiting trial. Is this something to be proud or ashamed of?
I didn’t vote for him. I believe he was merely a pawn in that botched coup attempt dubbed as the Oakwood Mutiny. If was so willingly allowed to be used in a stupid conspiracy, you think he’d make a good senator? He’ll just be waiting for the next financier to fund his next atrocity.
Look at that other coup meister, Gringo. His stint so far as a senator has been described as "mediocre." Why? This is because he can’t do any thinking of his own. In the past, his thinking was done by yet another current senator, named … well, we all know who he is.
It’s easy to spot the coup boilers. Find a young officer who’s loudly disgruntled; feed him with patriotism, honor and messianic righteousness; and then throw him millions of pesos worth of sophisticated weaponry. Voila!, you have a coup!
However, for the sake of argument, let’s say Trillanes wasn’t a pawn and was truly a leader of the Oakwood fiasco. Would I have voted for him?
Not a chance!
For a man who was willing to risk the lives of his fellow Filipinos to advance his “cause” (they planted bombs all over the place, remember?), can we say that he has the Filipino truly at heart?
Violence begets violence. If men use violence to wrest power, they’ll most certainly use violence to keep it, no matter who gets blasted away. The fact that Trillanes and his lackeys surrendered peacefully is no comfort.
The primary objective of a coup d’etat is to wrest power; and violence will always be a necessary by-product. This is the reason for the state-of-the-art weaponry. Would the Magdalo soldiers have been able to start a coup if they were holding popsickle sticks?
I’m glad Trillanes managed only 11th place in the senatorial roster. This means that a good percentage of Filipinos don’t trust him. They may sympathize with his cause, but not the way he
pursued it.
Still, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. He may still rise up as a Filipino senator in the likes of Claro M. Recto. This is his shining moment, that is if he’ll able to stay out of jail.
If he fails, there will now be two ex-coup plotters masquerading as mediocre senators.
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