FORMER opposition Senator Antonio F. Trillanes IV asked the Department of Justice to dismiss a kidnapping complaint filed against him by a woman who accused him of abducting and forcing her to help bring down the Duterte administration.

Mr. Trillanes, a staunch critic of President Rodrigo R. Duterte, submitted a pleading denying the allegations of Guillermina L. Barrido in the complaint filed by police in August. The woman claimed to have been forced by the ex-senator to slander Mr. Duterte.

Mr. Trillanes argued that the woman could not have been kidnapped since she was able to keep her mobile phone and was not bound while in the custody of her alleged kidnappers.

The former lawmaker also said Ms. Barrido had “willingly” joined when she was texted by priests from the convent where she would stay, telling her to bring some clothes while they wrote the affidavit against the president.

“She went with them willingly and it was clear that there was consent,” he told reporters after the preliminary investigation at the Justice department.

Mr. Trillanes also claimed in his pleading he had never met with her, adding that he was out of the country when the supposed meeting took place.

He called the allegations “pure, baseless and shameless lies and fabrications.”

Lawyer Jude Josue L. Sabio also submitted his affidavit, denying police claim that the judicial affidavit of Ms. Barrido in relation to the alleged murder of a man by then Mayor Duterte and his son Vice Mayor Paolo Z. Duterte was “ready-made.”

Mr. Sabio said the woman’s 60-page affidavit against the presidential family was “a product of my arduous professional legal work on Barrido as a potential witness in a protracted, painstaking and meticulous process.” — Vann Marlo M. Villegas

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