MANILA, Philippines — Within hours of Malacañang saying Solicitor General Jose Calida is taking the amnesty case to the Court of Appeals, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said his department will seek a partial reversal of Makati Judge Andres Soriano's ruling before the local court.
In a statement, Guevarra said that the Department of Justice will file a motion for partial reconsideration on Soriano’s October 22 ruling that junked the government's plea for a warrant against Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.
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This is in contradiction to presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo’s statement that he has talked to Calida, whom he said told him that the Office of the Solicitor General would bring the case to the Court of Appeals.
Govenment executives, including President Rodrigo Duterte, have pointed to Calida as the official behind the review of Trillanes' amnesty.
Guevarra qualified that the appeal would focus on the court's findings that Trillanes “had sufficiently shown that he filed his certificate of amnesty, and that therefore it follows that he also admitted guilt for the offense of coup d’etat and recanted all statements inconsistent with such admission of guilt.”
The motion for reconsideration would be filed before Friday, Guevarra added.
"[Acting Prosecutor General Richard] Fadullon, upon my instruction, discussed the matter with the solicitor general," he also said.
Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 148 on Monday threw out DOJ’s bid for the issuance of a warrant and hold departure order against Trillanes. Soriano, in the same ruling, said that Proclamation 572, while “not unconstitutional,” lacked factual bases as the court found that Trillanes filed an application for amnesty and admitted guilt.
Guevarra earlier said that they are ready to take the case of Trillanes' amnesty to the Supreme Court.
NUPL: Soriano's ruling a slap to Duterte's vindictiveness
Trillanes was visibly relieved and elated when he welcomed Soriano's ruling. He called the ruling a “ victory for justice, rule of law and democracy for the country.”
Opposition lawmakers, meanwhile, hailed the court’s ruling and said that Soriano restored the stability of the courts.
The National Union of Peoples' Lawyers, for its part, said that Soriano's ruling is a “huge political slap on this vindictive government that uses and abuses all means within its command.”
The NUPL also reiterated that Duterte's revocation of the amnesty puts in peril any the grant of amnesty that is a product of peace processes.
READ: Trillanes amnesty case impacts government's peace process, Hilbay says
The group of human rights lawyers hailed Soriano’s ruling as it “rightfully affirmed that an individual—even if at this time arguably the most voluble and intensely critical public official of government policies—can not be casually arrested through a legal artifice of unilaterally revoking an amnesty long granted by excavating from the bowels of the earth the existence or non-existence of merely formal prerequisites preceding its grant.”
Trillanes still has a pending challenge before the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Duterte's Proclamation 572.