Press Release
October 4, 2018

Dispatch from Crame No. 395:
Sen. Leila M. de Lima's statement on the AFP-Malacañang conflict relative to the Amnesty application issue

10/4/18

After AFP Chief of Staff Carlito Galvez, Jr. admitted that Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV indeed filed an application for amnesty, Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque continues to obfuscate the issue, telling the public to believe Judge Elmo Alameda, instead of the highest official of the AFP, the institution that processed Trillanes's amnesty.

That we are even talking about this absurd subject on the application form as the best evidence of the grant of amnesty is already a victory for Malacañang. Ordinarily, no serious lawyer would dare propose such an outrageous and absurd legal proposition, simply because of its sheer stupidity. Malacañang has now made it appear to be a legitimate topic of legal discussion.

But rather than be minded about disappointing lawyers for trivializing the law, Malacañang should be more worried about putting into ridicule the AFP's position on the matter. It cannot go on alienating the AFP with flippant rejoinders directed at no less than its Chief of Staff. In the first place, Roque is not only arguing from a position of weakness. He is also arguing from a position of absurdity.

This amnesty application form issue has been argued for far too long, and not even the ruling of an obviously coopted judge can give any semblance of legitimacy to a patently outrageous legal proposition.

The AFP Chief of Staff has already come out to stake his position on the matter. Roque should not take this with his usual dismissive and annoying style of trivializing serious challenges to Duterte's illegal acts.

Gen. Galvez, unlike Roque, is no gadfly. He plainly speaks from a position of authority and credibility. Roque, on the other hand, speaks from a position of zero credibility.

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