Ex-Oakwood mutiny leader turned popular senator coming to Tacloban Nov. 23

By CHITO DELA TORRE, delatorrechito@yahoo.com
November 8, 2011

Late last month, he called for a Senate inquiry into alleged “operational and tactical lapses” of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the recent bloody encounters with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which resulted to the death of 34 persons, including 29 soldiers.  According to a press release from his office, he had noted in particular the October 18 encounter in the village of Cambug in Al-Barka town, Basilan, a known bailiwick of the MILF.

Troops from the Army’s 13th and 19th Special Forces Company were reportedly sent to the area to verify reports that armed men headed by Dan Lakaw Asnawi were holding kidnap victims.  The military said that Asnawi’s group was among the MILF rebels involved in the beheading of 14 Marines in Ginanta village, also in Al-Barka, in 2007.  “We also need to confirm the reports that many of the soldier involved were allegedly undergoing scuba diving training for the Special Forces when they were hastily ordered to pursue – on behalf of the police – MILF Commander Dan Laksaw Asnawi,” he was quoted as saying.

In the Philippine Senate, he had filed 322 bills and resolutions and passed 21 of them.  During the May 14, 2007 mid-term elections, he campaigned for a Senatorial seat, right from his prison cell to which he was sent for leading a siege on July 27, 2003, for what came to be known more popularly as the “Oakwood mutiny”, of the Oakwood Premier apartments at the one-stop, self-sufficient Glorietta Mall (a 250,000-square meter large shopping mall in Ayala Center, Makati City which opened in 1991).  Then ranked only as a lieutenant senior grade, he won with more than 11 million votes.  He worked behind prison bars as senator, until his release from detention which enabled him to be physically present in Senate sessions and deliver his most important messages before his fellow senators.

He turned 40 last August 6.  He is senator Antonio “Sonny” Fuentes Trillanes IV.  Yes, I voted for him, along with my family, relatives and friends in Leyte and Samar who were then within walking or texting reach, and we are proud he is one of our nation’s trusted leaders.

Could he have the sincerity, mettle and wisdom to introduce to the Senate anything that could significantly demystify the irrational, repeated (since before the Marcosian Martial Law) and persistent, claim of government leaders that the mountainous 9,000-hectare agrarian covered Settlement area in Basey (bordered by or within  the territories of 10 barrios – Balante, Baloog, Bulao, Cancaiyas, Cogon, Dolongan, Mabini, Manlilinab, Old San Agustin, and Villa Aurora) could not be developed just because it does not pass continually changing requirements for developing a rural area whose still immeasurable potentials just await to be explored and begun seriously?

Politicians had come and go with the promise that at least roads would be built into the once battlefield between government soldiers and rebels and often favorite escape route of targets of hot pursuits, but nothing came out of any such promise.  Lately, the 8th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army could have set up its own camp, leaving Camp Lukban at Maulong, Catbalogan, nearby, but Catbalogan City’s invitation has seemed more attractive, thus, the 8ID will instead march to that offered 20-hectare (or so) land area and forget everything beneficial that could otherwise result from camping near or within the Samar Settlement Project.

Perhaps, this question could get an assuring reply from Sen. Trillanes himself when he comes to Tacloban highly urbanized city by November 23 this year.  A close friend who knows fully well how my heart aches for the Basey portion of the 19,893-hectare agrarian Samar Settlement area has requested me to personally meet Sonny and intimate to the senator my requests for assistance for that undeveloped territory of Basey.

Senators, we all know, have many laws in mind, and introduce them for enactment, but very, very few become a law.  Will Sonny’s upcoming proposed legislations suffer the same fate?  Perhaps, other than the normal and attendant processes through which a bill becomes a law, senators and other concerned sectors should already start firming up much better and much more effective ways – not just strategies – to ensure the metamorphosing of bills into laws.  Without the policy direction and transformation, proposed legislations will undergo the same state of transmogrification, which is bad and ridiculous for an advancing government.

Sonny will have an audience with leaders of non-government organizations and other organizations. The venue is the University of the Philippines at Tacloban.  The Baktas Kabub’wason Rural Workers Association (Baktas) and Consortium of Community Organizers of Basey (COrBa), both based in Basey, Samar and addressing the deeper concerns of Basey and its 45,000 people wish very much to be able to see the young senator and even hope that Sonny could make a side trip to Basey and start extracting initial information about just why the town still lags behind other towns that have already started developing their hinterlands as potential investment come-ons.

Since Sen. Trillanes is looked up to as a fightingest, independent-minded solon, Waray voting constituents will of course not expect him to delve into the political bickering and snafus in the local setting, such as the impending recall elections for Samar governor.  Well, as for this focused issue, I received an unconfirmed tip that barangay chiefs in the First District of Samar (that is, from vote-richest Calbayog City to erstwhile-Japanese-garrison coastal Tarangnan town are deluded unto receiving at least P20,000 each for their own disposal and submitting requests for barangay assistance from a lady politician at the Catbalogan Capitol.

The weekly event is interpreted by some as a ploy to reduce the voting power of the First District in favor of sitting governor Sharee Ann Tan, but one close quarter abnegates this.  My tipster said that, weekly, at least one per ten punong barangay leaves allegiance to the anti-Tans leaders.  I’m pretty sure that Sonny will not step in.  That will be most unlikely for him to dip his fingers into a too-much-local political issue, even if the present problem now is where the Commission on Elections will get its budget for the recall election in which all western Samarnon voters will first have to be told whom to vote for and then apprised of other electoral nuances before the Comelec conducts the actual election.

The Waray people are actually hoping and wishing hard that all incumbent senators visit their cities and towns, and initiate experiencing travails in exploring those places which no senator, no vice-president, and no president of the Philippine republic has yet gone to.  One visit can spell out so many, but follow-ups and follow-throughs must ensue not long after that visit.  In the case of Samar, particularly Basey, because no top-caliber government official ever dares to do a trek into its interior mountainous areas, even only once during his or her term, Basey remains more than 80 per cent undeveloped even if last January, 2009 it gained the status as a “first class” town.

Apart from Basey, other rural towns suffer the cost of the present norms of development.