Robin Padilla urges probe on alleged designation of Trillanes to check on Duterte

Senator Robin Padilla has filed a resolution urging a Senate investigation into the alleged designation of former senator Antonio Trillanes IV to conduct a welfare check on former president Rodrigo Duterte in The Hague, Netherlands. 

Based on proposed Senate Resolution No. 141, Padilla alleged that there have been discussions that Trillanes was designated by the Philippine government to conduct the welfare check on Duterte.

The senator said that it has to be clarified if such was officially sanctioned by any branch or agency of the government, and if so, under what authority and mandate was such designation given. 

“Such alleged designation raises questions of legality, constitutionality, and propriety of designating private individuals to represent the State before international tribunals and the extent of accountability of such designations to the Filipino people,” the resolution read. 

“The Senate, in exercise of its oversight and legislative functions, must look into this matter to ensure transparency, accountability, and to craft possible legislative measures that will provide clearer guidelines on the conduct of government representatives before international bodies,” it added. 

Trillanes, in response, said that Rodrigo’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, should ask her father if he really visited him while in detention. 

“Game ako diyan. Pero mas madali kung tanungin na lang nila mismo si Digong kung bumisita nga ako sa kanya o hindi. Anyway, si Sara can talk to him over the phone any time,” Trillanes said. 

(I'm game for that. But it's easier if they just ask Digong himself if I actually visited him or not. Anyway, Sara can talk to him over the phone any time.) 

Sara Duterte last week raised concern regarding the welfare check that was supposedly conducted by the Philippine Embassy in The Hague to her father while in detention. 

She said that her father did not need the Philippine government, through the embassy, to visit him and their family will be the ones to take care of him.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), meanwhile, said that the welfare check was in line with the embassy’s functions under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and relevant Philippine laws to protect the welfare of all Filipinos.

The Senate on Wednesday voted to adopt a resolution requesting the International Criminal Court (ICC) to hold former president Duterte under house arrest for “humanitarian considerations.” 

The Duterte patriarch was arrested in the Philippines by local authorities on March 11, based on a warrant of arrest issued by the ICC. He is currently detained in The Hague for charges of crimes against humanity for alleged extrajudicial killings during his administration's drug war. –NB, GMA Integrated News