Press Release
December 5, 2007

ESCUDERO SAYS TRANSFER OF TRILLANES ET AL. TO BILIBID A CONFESSION OF GOVERNMENT'S CLUMSY SECURITY MEASURE

It is an open revelation of the state's lack of confidence in its own security scheme was how Senator Chiz Escudero reacted on the planned transfer of Trillanes et al. to the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa from Camp Crame in Quezon City.

Escudero said the government is again showing overzealousness in handling the case of Trillanes and his co-accused in the Manila Pen siege thus screwing yet again how things are done and should be done in this country.

"Transferring Trillanes, General Lim and the 34 other soldiers and civilians from where they are now on the premise of security and safety is very absurd since they are already being detained at the heart of the police force. If that is not a safe place at all, we should be alarmed" Escudero said.

He said anchoring the transfer on the basis of safety and security is tantamount to the government admitting that the problem is wider than they are admitting. By doing so, the senator added that the government is just acting true to form in continuously screwing up how things are and should be done in this country.

"You only house death convicts and sentenced inmates in the National Bilibid Prison. Whatever law Trillanes and his co-accused may have violated, they are still awaiting trial and if at all, sentence. Why create an exemption out of this case which the government has been trumpeting as victoriously quelled"?

Under the mandate and functions of the Bureau of Corrections, it is in charged with the custody and rehabilitation of national offenders, that is, those sentenced to serve a term of imprisonment of more than three years.

Escudero said Trillanes et al. should stay where they should be legally detained. "If government is so anxious to cover their backs with the bungled security measures outside prison, like what happened during the court trial of Trillanes and his group, that is where they should begin overhauling."

The military and the police should begin reassessing their security procedures outside camps to avert the same incidents from happening again, the senator added.

Escudero said if the government persists with the kind of approach they are employing now to Trillanes and the other accused, it may yet create a martyr out of him and relive the mass's sympathy towards the group. "These people have already been defeated, quelled, detained. There is no need for unnecessary cruelty anymore even if they have committed wrongdoings. The government's mantra last week was to adhere to the rule of law. It must do so in this case and let the law decide for or against Trillanes and the others."

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