With Senator Antonio Trillanes facing an ethics complaint filed by Senator Richard Gordon, President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday, said that the former Magdalo mutineer deserved it.
“’Yan ang problema sa hindi abogado, tapos pa-bright-bright, pagalit-galit, pa-tapang-tapang. O kita mo ‘yun gusto ni Gordon, i-expel siya. It might come because ‘yung behavior niya talaga (That is the problem with someone who is not a lawyer, who acts as if he is bright, fuming, and fearless. Look what happened, Gordon wants to expel him. It might come really because of his behavior),” Duterte told the reporters in the Libingan ng mga Bayani Mortuary, Taguig City.
The President said that Trillanes barely knows legal terms as observed in his performance as a lawmaker in the recent hearings. He added that the said Senator insists questions that are irrelevant or not allowed to be asked.
Duterte however admitted, “Ako ganun rin. Maybe kung ako rin ang nag-senador, ma-expel rin, ‘yung bunganga minsan kasi, hindi ko mapigilan. Ewan ko. (Me too. Maybe if I was a senator I would have been expelled as well. At times, I can’t control my mouth. I don’t know),”
In a televised interview on Tuesday, Gordon was open in saying that Trillanes’ ‘out-of-the-line’ behavior should cost him his position.
Gordon said that he thinks Trillanes does not belong in the Senate and furthered that the latter should be expelled because one should not insult his teammates.
“That’s why we say, ‘Will the gentleman yield to a few questions?’ You don’t address the guy, you address the chair. There are rules. He doesn’t know his rules that’s why he goes up to the deep end,” the blue ribbon committee chairman said.
“And when that happens, what do you have? A mob. You cannot have a mob in the Senate. People are expected to act in a certain way,” he added.
Gordon’s complaint said that Trillanes engaged in ‘unparliamentary acts and uttered unparliamentary language, and existed disorderly behavior’ which caused ‘damage to the Senate and to the people,’ in the hearing on August 31 on the drug shipment of crystal meth which went past the Customs.
It can be remembered that during the said hearing, side-by-side, Gordon and Trillanes sparked a word brawl when the latter called the blue ribbon committee a ‘comité de absuelto.’
Trillanes on the other hand is confident that the members of the Senate will recognize that he has done ‘nothing unimplementary’ on his actions and language in the said hearing.
“I may be passionate and serious in my demeanor sometimes but I never went outside the rules of the Senate,” he said.
He added, “Gordon just can’t accept the fact that somebody stood up to him and put him in his place.”
“He wants to show [the President] that he is the most loyal senator in the Senate and that’s why he is willing to do this. But the other senators will go along with him? I think not,” Trillanes said.