Manila: Supporters of front-runner presidential candidate Mayor Rodrigo Duterte of Davao City in southern Philippines have said they are not worried by coup threats aired by former coup plotter Senator Antonio Trillanes.
“We will vote for Mayor Duterte on May 9, watch our ballots, and will not allow cheating. The incumbent administration of President Benigno Aquino should not stop the results of the elections whoever wins,” said Ryan Araullo, leader of pro-Duterte voters in suburban Quezon City.
Sonny Dominguez, agriculture secretary of former president Corazon Aquino who is a Duterte supporter, said, “I have no knowledge of such things (military restiveness to thwart the May 9 polls).”
Meanwhile, ex-Marine Nicanor Faeldon, who participated in a right-wing group’s brief occupation of Oakwood Hotel and the Peninsula Hotel in Makati City, during failed coup plots against former president Gloria Arroyo in 2003, and 2007, respectively, said he was against Trillanes’ “demolition job” against Duterte.
“I saw in Duterte the change that all voters saw. I believe in change,” said Faeldon. “It is a sign that Trillanes’ right-wing rebel group is divided and could not influence the military to go against the results of the May 9 polls,” a political analyst said.
Revealing plans to unseat Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte if he wins in the May 9 elections, Trillanes said, “People will have remedies to take back what they gave and will find creative ways of doing that — even before (the mayor) formally assumes (the presidency).”
“Let’s just say it’s found to be very easy to recruit people for such military intervention and I believe people will be longing and clamouring for that, similar to that creative way they did back in 2001,” argued Trillanes. He referred to the military-backed street protests that were launched by those who were against the abrupt ending of an impeachment trial of former Joseph Estrada (over plunder) at the Senate in late 2000, which resulted in his ouster in early 2001. He was elected in 1998.
Results of the May 9 elections will be out by mid-May, and the next president is seated on June 30.
Meanwhile, Duterte released on Wednesday bank statements of 17 joint accounts with his daughter Sara in three branches of the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI). It was response to Trillanes’ claim that one of these accounts had P2.4 billion (Dh200 million) in transactions from 2006 to 2015, while another had P227 million (Dh18.91 million) in 2014. Duterte did not declare this amount in his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth, alleged Trillanes.
Citing another complaint against Duterte, Trillanes said, “A faction in the military is averse to any form of power sharing with the Communists that Duterte was proposing.”
He referred to Jose Maria Sison, founder of the 48-year old Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New Peoples’ Army (CPP-NPA), who told Duterte in a dialogue over Skype that he wanted to come home after the mayor is elected president. Sison has been living in exile in the Netherlands since 1987.
Reacting to Duterte’s controversial claim to fight criminals and drug lords in three to six months once elected, Senator Miriam Santiago (another presidential candidate) also said, “Some of his statements make us doubt his allegiance to the rule of law.”
He should ensure that people have the right to protection of the law regardless of status and his alleged crime, advised Santiago. Rights groups have accused Duterte, a lawyer and a former prosecutor, of extrajudicial killings in cleaning Davao City of criminals.
Trillanes, a vice-presidential candidate who has no presidential candidate, is a known supporter of independent presidential candidate Senator Grace Poe. Unconfirmed reports alleged she is the secret candidate of President Aquino even as he supports ruling Liberal Party’s presidential bet Mar Roxas.
