IT WAS not too long ago that a running controversy erupted between Sen. Antonio Trillanes and President Rodrigo Duterte as to who is the smarter of the two.
Well, had Duterte kept his cool and exercised prudence, people would have believed he was the more intelligent.
Duterte got the better of his unbridled emotions, however, after Solicitor General Jose Calida reported to him his covert discovery that the amnesty granted to Trillanes in 2011 by then president Benigno Aquino III for leading the Oakwood mutiny in 2003 and the Manila Peninsula siege in 2007, was defective.
Immediately, Duterte issued Proclamation 572, declaring the amnesty “void ab initio,” for supposedly having failed to comply with two requirements for its granting, namely, (1) application for amnesty and (2) admission of guilt.
There is no doubt that Duterte and Trillanes have been laying traps for the other to fall into.
But this has always been Trillanes’s game plan: to be the center of attention.
Remember the verbal tussles he had had with his peers in the Senate? He always comes out strutting like a peacock after having caught the attention of people.
The same thing is happening now against Duterte. All ears and eyes are directed at him yet again. This is an example of how one makes a living out of being a political martyr, perhaps to the consternation of Duterte.--Jesus Sievert