DOJ blocks Trillanes plea for media interviews

FROM WWW.GMANEWS.TV
DOJ blocks Trillanes plea for media interviews
02/22/2007 | 04:08 PM

The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked Thursday the Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) to reject the motion filed by alleged renegade junior officer Lt. s.g. Antonio Trillanes IV for full media exposure so he can air his government platform during the campaign period.

Trillanes, currently detained at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig for coup d’etat and for alleged violation of Article of War 96 (conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman), is running for senator under the Genuine Opposition (GO) coalition.

The junior officer, who led the July 27, 2003 mutiny by seizing a plush hotel-apartment in Makati, invoked the freedom of the press in his plea to be interviewed by members of media.

In his motion for full media access, Trillanes said as a detainee he has not lost his constitutional rights.

He also cited the Sibal’s “Philippine Legal Encyclopedia (1991)" to claim that he has an absolute “right to run and campaign."

In a four-page rejoinder, State Prosecutor Juan Pedro Navera said although Trillanes can be presumed innocent until proven guilty by the court, the junior officer is not entitled to freedom of the press because he is not a member of media.

Navera said “Trillanes cannot point where in the 1987 Constitution his absolute right to run and campaign is provided for."

“In fact, while he assails the prosecution’s supposed self-serving arguments, his failure to cite an explicit Supreme Court doctrine in this regard, constrains him to make his own self-serving interpretations about Sibal’s definition of the right to vote," Navera said.

Trillanes cannot also compare himself to the late senator Benigno Aquino who was allowed in 1978 by dictator Ferdinand Marcos to be interviewed on television and to campaign through media during the martial law regime, according to Navera.

“The undersigned State Prosecutors were not even born during the dark days of martial law and counsel for accused Trillanes’ childhood memory of free access to the media given to Senator Aquino cannot be seriously considered as evidence nor given judicial notice," Navera said.

Navera said the scales of justice have been tilted since December last year in favor of Trillanes.

“He has been allowed to register as a voter in Caloocan City. The prosecution allowed him to personally file his certificate of candidacy for senator at the Commission on Elections (Comelec). The prosecution relented and allowed accused Trillanes to pick his preferred date of filing his certificate of candidacy," Navera said.

Navera said nothing will satisfy Trillanes when it comes to his supposedly absolute right to run and campaign.- GMANews.TV