Trillanes’ rebellion trial to extend to 2020

Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV's revived rebellion trial will extend to 2020 as government prosecutors attempt to present witnesses whom the defense says were not included in the original witness list.

The Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 150 cancelled a Monday hearing after state prosecutors requested that the trial date be moved because they have "not communicated" with their intended witness for the day: GMA News reporter Tina Panganiban-Perez.

Complying with a subpoena requiring her presence in court, Panganiban-Perez attended the hearing.

Former Bureau of Corrections chief Nicanor Faeldon or Metropolitan Manila Development Authority chairman Danilo Lim, whom the prosecution said they intended to take the witness stand Monday, were absent.

The next hearings will be held months apart: on November 18, 2019 and on January 27, 2020.

Before Monday, the last hearing was held in July, when Assistant State Prosecutor Mary Jane Sytat testified on Trillanes and other Magdalo men walking out of their coup d'etat hearing to go to the Manila Peninsula Hotel in 2007.

Trillanes faces revived rebellion charges over the Manila Peninsula Siege. The case was dismissed in 2011 after former president Benigno Aquino III granted him amnesty but was reopened after the Department of Justice (DOJ) sought his arrest upon orders from President Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte declared Trillanes' amnesty void ab initio in August 2018. The Makati court, presided by Judge Elmo Alameda, ordered the former senator arrested weeks later upon a motion by the DOJ and junked Trillanes' appeal before the year ended.

Trillanes, a staunch critic of Duterte and his administration, is out on bail.

Another local judge, Andres Soriano, refused to order Trillanes rearrested for a similarly dismissed coup d'etat case over the 2003 Oakwood Mutiny.

'Violation of right to due process'

Trillanes' lawyer, Reynaldo Robles, asked the judge in open court on Monday to order the DOJ to justify its presentation of Panganiban-Perez, whom he said is not in the original list of prosecution witnesses.

Alameda ordered the prosecution to submit a written explanation within 10 days and directed the defense to comment or oppose the submission within another 10 days.

Robles had also said last July that he would object to the presentation of Faeldon and Lim as witnesses, claiming they are not included in the witness list either.

After the hearing, Robles told reporters that the prosecution has not yet presented any witness from its list.

"We don't understand why they cannot present those witnesses considering that substantial time has elapsed since the case was reopened. There's no reason for them not to be able to communicate with these individuals," he said.

He said there is a rule against the presentation of unlisted witnesses unless it is justified or if the evidence is newly discovered.

"If this pattern continues, we will raise this as a violation of the right of the accused to due process, because the purpose of a pretrial is to lay down all of the cards on the table and all of the witnesses should be identified ahead of time so that the defense could also prepare," he said.

"It's not fair for the prosecution to keep adding to their list of witnesses and changing their witnesses without appropriate notice because it violates the right of the accused to due process," he added. — BM, GMA News