Trillanes urged to apologize for calling colleagues cowards

MANILA, Philippines - The United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) yesterday called on Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV to apologize to his fellow senators for saying their lack of attendance in his investigation of overpricing allegations in Makati was either out of reverence or fear of Vice President Jejomar Binay.

“What is he saying, that his fellow senators are cowards?” UNA secretary general and Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco said.

Tiangco reminded Trillanes of Binay’s record as an activist and human rights lawyer during the martial law years.

Tiangco said Binay is a defender of the Constitution and of the administration of former President Corazon Aquino against military adventurists.

“Who is gunpowder-minded? Is it Vice President or Senator Trillanes?” Tiangco asked, referring to the senator’s involvement in the failed Oakwood Mutiny and the Peninsula siege in 2003.

“His messianic complex is again shown and his grandstanding at the expense of his colleagues. What does he want to show? That he is the only one who is brave in the Senate?” Tiangco said.

Tiangco said Trillanes should not blame the vice president and his fellow senators if his Senate “gimmick” was poorly attended.

“His fellow senators probably realize that for one, the national budget should be a priority over a politically-motivated probe based on mere allegations of political detractors of the vice president and his family,” Tiangco said.

He disputed Trillanes’ claim that the first hearing on the alleged overpricing of Makati City Hall Parking Building 2 strengthened the complaint against the vice president.

Tiangco said the hearing showed the detractors of the vice president used the Senate to malign the Binay family by resorting to name-calling and bringing out baseless, unsubstantiated and false allegations.

He said the hearing also exposed the partiality of Trillanes and Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano.

He said Cayetano acted as lawyer for the Binays’ detractors while bullying Makati Mayor Junjun Binay and officials and technical employees of the Commission on Audit (COA) who had submitted a report saying there was no overpricing in the project after an investigation ordered by the COA central office.

“Because he does not want the answers of the technical officials who did the actual inspection that there was no overprice, he (Cayetano) bullied them. The technical team has the technical expertise and they are mandated under the law to do that job,” Tiangco said.