MANILA, Philippines — It is up to the court to decide how it will take Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr.'s statement that Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV applied for amnesty, BGen. Edgard Arevalo, Armed Forces spokesman said.
Galvez is chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Arevalo, in a statement on Tuesday, said that Galvez’s remark at the Senateon Tuesday “is but a declaration that Sen. Trillanes IV applied for amnesty.”
“It’s akin to the affidavit executed by Col. Josefa Berbigal attesting that Sen. Trillanes applied for amnesty,” Arevalo added.
READ: AFP: Lapses possible in handling of Trillanes amnesty papers
President Rodrigo Duterte declared the amnesty granted to the senator, one of his fiercest critics, as "void from the beginning" for Trillanes' supposed non-compliance with amnesty application requirements.
The proclamation also said the military "has no available copy of his application for amnesty in the records." The government says that means he never applied for amnesty.
Trillanes' filing of his application for amnesty in 2011 was heavily covered by media and is supported by documents based on the application and by the military officer who processed it.
Senate hearing
During the Senate Committee on Finance’s hearing Tuesday, Trillanes did not hold back from quizzing top Defense officials on the matter of his amnesty.
Galvez said that there may have been “some lapses” and that documents were not properly transmitted from J1, or the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel.
“The old papers [were not] brought down pabalik sa GHQ (back to General Headquarters),” he added.
But Trillanes pressed: “Did I apply for amnesty?”
Galvez then referred to the affidavit issued by Col. Josefa Berbigal that “according to her,” the senator applied for amnesty.
Berbigal processed Trillanes' amnesty application. Her testimony was included in the affidavits filed by Trillanes' camp before the Makati courts hearing the prosecutors' motion for warrant of arrest.
Arevalo however said that Galvez’s statement may be left best to the discretion of the courts.
“We defer to the wise discretion of the court to where the case has been submitted as to how it will appreciate the statement. And since that may bear on the merits of the case, we will not issue further statement with due to regard to the sub judice rule,” the military spokesman added.
Roque: Galvez not a lawyer
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque, on Tuesday, dismissed Galvez's remark because he is "not a lawyer."
"Certainly, you don’t expect me to take the side of Chief Galvez, who is not a lawyer, over the words of a learned judge." he said.
"I’m talking as a lawyer, best evidence rule. And besides, that’s in the courts and one court has said that the pictures and everything else that Sen. Trillanes adduced are not enough and of course, I concur as a lawyer,” Roque said.
Roque also insisted that Trillanes failed to present to the court a copy of his application form for the amnesty. Trillanes's camp, however, presented several pieces of secondary evidence to support their argument.
Trillanes is due to attend a hearing on Friday at the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 148, where he had been facing a coup d'etat charge over the 2003 Oakwood Mutiny but the case was dismissed in 2011 in pursuant to the amnesty.