SENATOR Antonio F. Trillanes IV is considering filing before the Makati City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 148 a motion for partial reconsideration seeking to nullify President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s Proclamation No. 572 which voided his amnesty.
Reynaldo B. Robles, legal counsel for Mr. Trillanes, said the senator is “contemplating” filing his own appeal as the prosecution is trying to use the court’s order upholding the constitutionality of the Proclamation “to undermine or nullify an existing final court decision.”
“It is not allowed under the Constitution, it’s only the courts, particularly the Supreme Court and the lower courts, which could entertain cases for the annulment or nullification of previous court decision as well as presidential proclamations,” Mr. Robles told reporters after a hearing on Oct. 30.
“So that’s why we are saying that there is now basis for the court to declare the Proclamation unconstitutional insofar as they are trying to use it to assert or claim that the previous decision of the court is null and void because that is not within the power of the President,” he stated.
He said the motion by the Department of Justice (DoJ) for partial reconsideration “clearly shows the intent” to use Proclamation No. 572 to nullify a final court decision.
“If that is the intent, then the proclamation should be nullified by the court because it becomes illegal and unconstitutional, because the President is trying to arrogate unto himself the power to nullify previous court decisions. A power even the Supreme Court does not have up to this point,” Mr. Robles said.
Judge Andres B. Soriano of Makati RTC Branch 148 on Oct. 22 ruled against the DoJ’s motion for Mr. Trillanes’s arrest and travel ban in connection with his non-bailable coup d’etat case from the 2003 Oakwood Mutiny, saying the case had long been dismissed on Sept. 21, 2011 after Mr. Trillanes was granted amnesty and the dismissal of his case became “final and executory.”
Mr. Soriano, however, held that Proclamation no. 572 is constitutional as it is “purely an executive act.”
The DOJ filed its motion for partial reconsideration on Oct. 26, stating that following the revocation of Mr. Trillanes’s amnesty, the dismissal of his coup d’etat case in 2011 is likewise void “and can never be final and executory.” — Vann Marlo M. Villegas

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