The statement: “Do your worst . . .”

I got the copy of the statement at about seven in the evening yesterday, and the moment I read it, I felt a different kind of foreboding.

Suddenly I was very afraid. No, I was not afraid for myself, but for the future of the country, because the statement, in its entirety, spoke volumes about the mind and feelings of a man who has irrevocably lost—renounced—his faith in the system of justice to which he had submitted himself five years ago.

“What if millions of other Filipinos felt the same way as the man did?” said I to myself.
The man is Senator Antonio F. Trillanes IV and the statement is his six-page soliloquy on his exit from the court, his denouement of a politico-revolutionary drama in which he was a principal player: the Oakwood incident of 2003.

For those who have not kept track, Trillanes was supposed to testify yesterday as a witness for the defense—for himself and his band of revolutionists who are undergoing trial for the so-called Oakwood mutiny.

For reasons that can be gleaned from his statement reproduced below, the senator, who garnered 11 million votes in the May 2007 election but continues to languish in prison, declined, refused, to take the witness stand.

“Statement

“I am supposed to testify as a defense witness today in connection with my coup d’etat case at the Makati RTC. However, after much reflection, I decided to forego my testimony and write this letter instead.

“There are a few undisputed facts in this case: 1) That on 27 July 2003, I, together with 300 other officers and men, spoke the TRUTH; 2) No person was harmed; 3) No property was damaged; and 4) Not a single shot was fired. Yet, after almost five years in detention, we still stand accused of committing a crime that could have us incarcerated for life. Is this just? No. Did I ever regret my actions? No.

“Now, the prosecutors have allowed themselves to be used as instruments to further this injustice and the presiding judge may yet be pressured into convicting us, but everyone in this courtroom knows—deep in their hearts—that we are not criminals and definitely not a menace to society. On the contrary, we, the accused, have rendered faithful service to our Motherland; we have lived by the ideals thst our alma mater, the Philippine Military Academy, has taught us—COURAGE, INTEGRITY and LOYALTY. The physical and moral courage to stand up against what is wrong and to fight for what is right; the integrity to resist the lure and trappings of power and wealth; and the unbending loyalty to God, Country and People.

“The question now is, “Why are we in prison?” Indeed, why are we in prison when the TRUTH we spoke of on that fateful day has been validated time and again through the despicable revelations of crime and corruption committed by GMA and her cohorts? Why are we in prison when, through the recent elections, the Filipino people have affirmed the justness of our cause?

“In my search for the answers to these questions, I came across Henry David Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience, and I quote: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.”

“Today, I refuse to participate any further in this travesty of justice, just as the GMA administration has lost all moral authority to render any judgment over me and my companions.
Do your worst, for we have already been acquitted by the people.

(Signed) Sen. Antonio F. Trillanes IV”

No matter how you look at it, no matter where you sit, this statement is an indictment of the tyrant in Malacanang, and, if you ask me, the clearest call yet for the people to rise up and shake off the chain that keeps them in bondage, yes, hostage, of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and his coterie of liars and thieves. This is an exhortation from a persecuted, albeit, elected official whom we might see as a prisoner still, until when, we don’t know.

Do your worst.

But is there anything worse that Macapagal Arroyo and his band of cheaters could do to Sen. Trillanes other than continue sneering at him, jeering at him, that he is in prison while they, the authors and perpetrators of a monumental injustice, remain scot-free; free to roam around the country; free to loot; and free to spin a web of lies to keep truth out?

Last year, I saw it coming. I saw infinite patience—personified by Trillanes—ending its clash with infinite greed and lust for revenge—embodied in Gloria Arroyo—when Trillanes and Gen. Lim walked out of that courtroom on that dark Thursday of November to proclaim yet again their Filipinoness. I said to myself then: “Watch out.”

So here it goes. Trillanes has stepped out, out into the yard; away from the clutches of a court that plays the tango music of the powers-that-be. Ninoy Aquino did the same bold step many years ago, when he denounced Marcos’s military tribunal as a “kangaroo court” and refused to be bound by its inane orders, restrictions, and verdict that led him to his heroic death.

Do your worst.

In a way, by ending his participation in a Malacanang-produced and GMA-directed moro-moro, Trillanes issued a challenge that none of us who are free, but who are not as courageous as he, can verbalize and stand up for.

In a way, his decision not to participate any longer in the continuing travesty of justice will free him more than it will free us. In a way, this alsa-balutan, which he should have done long ago bud did not because he is one of us, like us, patient and forgiving, will unclip his wings and immensely expand the boundaries of his patriotic imagination.

Maybe, his true place really as a just man is the prison, as he said it himself in quoting Thoreau. But come to think of it. Isn’t he the freer man than all of us? Are we not—who claims to be free—living in a bigger prison under the watchful gaze of a jailer gone berserk who “imprisons any unjustly”? If yes, where do we seek refuge? What do we do?

We do our worst. We rise up, for that is just.

Senator Mar Roxas said, three days before Trillanes walked out of the court hearing on November 29 last year, that “today, one cannot be a true Liberal and not be angry.”

“Where the people are thirsty for the truth, facts are withheld.

“That where the people are keen to engage their government, power is not shared.

“And where the people express themselves through the ballot, their votes are miscounted.

“And because people believe that their leaders are more preoccupied with self-interest rather than with a genuine public interest, we see and feel the helplessness, the cynicism, the despair, and now even the estrangement of the people from their government.”

It might be that Roxas was speaking of what Trillanes—and millions of other Filipinos—finally felt.

“Oras na!” as Roxas said last November.

The last straw snapped yesterday. Trillanes had the will and courage to break it.

Now, do your worst.