Treason raps filed vs Sen. Trillanes

About this time in 2012 China grabbed Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines. Reports have linked Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV to that invasion. Only this month, quite belatedly, was he formally accused of treason and espionage. Complaining before the Ombudsman were ex-congressman Ronald Adamat, ex-PNP chief Roberto Lastimoso, educator Dr. Enrico Sampang, retired judge and Comelec commissioner Moslemen Macarambon, and Dioscoro Esteban Jr.

To recount, war nearly broke out at the shoal, 123 miles off Luzon, within the Philippines’ 200-mile EEZ. A Philippine Navy patrol had accosted scores of Chinese fishers hauling prohibited fan corals and giant clams into 66 launches. Six Chinese Coast Guard vessels, straying 900 miles away from base in southernmost Hainan, suddenly zipped in to the poachers’ aid. In the ensuing standoff, Manila protested the breach of environment pacts. Beijing shrilly insisted on owning the shoal, so could do anything it wanted there. The US jumped in to avert a commence-fire. A simultaneous withdrawal of the warships was proposed.

What followed were alleged later by then-Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. It turned out that, for months before and during the crisis, Trillanes secretly had gone to China at least 16 times. It was in defiance of the rule for government men to clear foreign trips beforehand with superiors. At one point, after meeting with Chinese officials, Trillanes summoned the new Ambassador to Beijing Sonia Brady. He briefed her about what he had told the Chinese. Notably: (1) that Scarborough was of no import to the Philippines; and (2) that as an ex-Navy ensign, he was certain Manila was incapable of defending the shoal. He viewed as “treason” Foreign Sec. Albert del Rosario’s seeking US help to confront China. And he wanted a news blackout of Chinese incursions in Scarborough and nearby reefs.

All that is contained in the “Brady Notes: Aug. 17, 2012,” which Enrile read into the Senate records, and Trillanes’ five accusers now cite as evidence (full text in http://www.rappler.com/nation/12700-enrile,-trillanes-fight-over-china).

Emboldened by vital info from Trillanes, the five lament, China proceeded to occupy Scarborough. This it did by deceit. The six Chinese war vessels pretended to sail away at the same time the lone Philippine Navy ship did. When the latter disappeared from the horizon, the six returned, with three more. They chained off the entry to the horseshoe-shaped shoal. Trillanes quietly came home. Since then, Chinese sentry ships have barred Filipinos from their traditional fishing grounds. Water cannons and automatic rifles are used to shoo them away. China has announced plans to concrete the shoal, the way it did seven reefs in the South China Sea, three within the Philippine EEZ.

Trillanes claimed then to be acting as President Noynoy Aquino’s backchannel to Beijing. The five complainants impleaded P-Noy in the treason rap. The filing was last May 6, three days before Election 2016, in which Trillanes was running for VP.

Adamat says they complained only then because of Trillanes’ allegations two weeks prior of Rody Duterte’s hidden wealth. They do not know but had supported the presumptive President. Esteban, he adds, was with the MRRD (Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte) Movement.

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Also about this time in 2012 Philippine Olympics Committee head Peping Cojuangco stumbled upon a scam. A European counterpart had informed him of 31 “Filipino basketball players” being arrested at the airport. They were in fact not the first ones held by Immigration. Another 24 “team members” earlier had been stopped “en route” to an international tournament.

On investigation Cojuangco learned that only four members of that unusually large basketball team, 55 men in all, really were Filipinos. Of the four, only one was a familiar name and below 45 years old. The rest were Chinese nationals. It wasn’t the first such oddity either. A similarly huge “Filipino delegation” to Australia consisted too of Chinese. Why were they carrying Philippine travel papers?

The Basketball Association of the Philippines then was frequently in the news, mostly bad. Cojuangco’s POC had delisted it as the national sports association for the game. Yet it continued to send Philippine teams – poorly selected, trained, and funded – to world amateur competitions. The teams invariably ended last. In one tourney the delegation lost all its matches by more than 55 points.

Sources at Manila Immigration gave Cojuangco a dossier on the BAP secretary-general, Graham Chua Lim. The man had a string of criminal cases, including fake Filipino-hood, and was deemed stateless. Since the 1990s the Supreme Court twice had ordered him deported. Yet he managed to stay – and control the BAP. He would even cause the ouster of presidents he couldn’t control, like senators Joey Lina and Jinggoy Estrada.

Authorities found Lim to be using the BAP as front for human trafficking. Corrupt Chinese officials or their scions were leaving for overseas residency, with Philippine basketball team membership as cover. Upon arrival at the country of tournament, they went “TNT,” or “tago nang tago” as Filipinos would say.

Lim’s BAP president by 2012 was Trillanes. The following year Cojuangco got his nephew P-Noy finally to deport Lim.

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