By Segundo Eclar Romero
Duterte has set the stage for sacrificing Jose Calida. He has said he issued Presidential Proclamation 572 on the say so or Calida as Solicitor-General. Duterte, of course, knows that targeting Trillanes was a joint project between him and Calida. They both hated the Senator, and would take the first opportunity, no matter how clumsy, to neutralize him. Calida has in a sense borrowed Presidential Powers with the President’s complicity to try to extricate himself from the charge of conflict of interest in the way his security agency business cornered government contracts. It was a long shot, but Duterte has a way out — he could always put the entire blame on Calida, if the plan backfires.
Of course the plan has backfired. It has been so indefensible at its face value that no one was willing to lay his reputation on the line for the revocation of the amnesty. Calida clumsily tried to distance himself from the amnesty revocation action, saying with a straight face before media that he had nothing to do with it. But the DND and AFP who did not want to be left holding the bag pointed to Calida as the prime mover. He had tried to get the AFP and DND unnecessarily compromised in the caper, trying to dupe the AFP into arresting Trillanes without a proper warrant.
So now Duterte is poised to cut Calida loose, unless either of the two RTCs and the Supreme Court sustain Calida and Duterte and issue a warrant, or, in the case of the Supreme Court, refuse to issue a TRO against the arrest.
