MANILA, Philippines — Solicitor General Jose Calida has taken the next step in seeking the arrest of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, as he challenged the Makati court’s ruling rejecting the government’s plea for an arrest warrant against the senator.
Calida, who initiated the review of Trillanes’ amnesty, asked the appellate court to reverse Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 148’s ruling that held that the senator applied for amnesty and admitted guilt over mutinies against the Arroyo administration.
READ: Calida mum on OSG's involvement in review of amnesty granted to Trillanes
Judge Andres Soriano junked the Department of Justice’s plea for a warrant against the senator. The judge also affirmed the constitutionality of President Rodrigo Duterte's Proclamation 572 declaring Trillanes’ amnesty void from the beginning.
The solicitor general filed a petition for certiorari, saying Soriano committed “grave abuse of discretion” and asked the CA to issue an arrest warrant against the senator, a vocal critic of the administration.
A full copy of Calida’s petition has yet to be released to media as of this post.
Review of amnesty
President Rodrigo Duterte pointed to Calida as the “bright” man behind the review of Trillanes’ amnesty documents.
In a speech on September 2018, the president said: “Look, I am here to enforce the law. It was Calida who did all the research on Trillanes’ amnesty just like what he did to [former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes] Sereno.”
Duterte branded Sereno his “enemy.” She was ousted through a vote of her colleagues on Calida’s quo warranto petition.
“If the solicitor general said there’s a mistake and it has to be corrected, I cannot refuse,” Duterte added.
Trillanes, one of Duterte’s most vocal critics, initiated a legislative probe into Calida’s alleged impropriety for his stock ownership of a security agency that bagged multimillion-peso contracts with government bodies.
Calida, for his part, ran to the Supreme Court to put a halt into the Senate committee proceedings.
The SC, last November, gave due course to Calida’s petition.