Antonio Trillanes

Early life

Known as "Sonny" to his family and friends, Trillanes was born and raised in Caloocan, to Philippine Navy Capt. Antonio Floranza Trillanes, Sr. (PMA Class '59) of Ligao City, Albay, and Estelita Dia Fuentes from Ivisan, Capiz. He is brother of Antonio Jr. and Antonio III.

Education

His elementary years were spent at Siena College, Quezon City from 1975–1983, and from 1983–1987, his secondary education was at Angelicum College in Quezon City. In 1990, while a fourth year BS in Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE) student from De La Salle University on Taft Avenue, Manila, he took and passed the PMA entrance examination.

Military career

He formally entered into public service the following year as a cadet in the Philippine Military Academy where he graduated cum laude in 1995, while earning a degree in BS Naval System Engineering. Other awards he received while in PMA are the Mathematics Plaque, Physical Science Plaque, and the Tambuli Award for electrical/electronics engineering.

In 2002, Trillanes took up his graduate studies at the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance, and got his master's degree in Public Administration, Major in Public Policy and Program Management.

For the duration of the masters program, he received two University Scholar Awards for obtaining two semestral GPAs of 1.0 to 1.25 and a College Scholar Award for obtaining a semestral GPA of 1.25 to 1.50.

Oakwood Mutiny

Trillanes was known for leading the 2003 Oakwood Mutiny when he and some 300 junior officers and enlisted men of the Armed Forces of the Philippines took over the Oakwood towers in Makati City as protest for alleged rampant corruption in the Philippine government - in the Armed Forces of the Philippines. He was detained for almost seven and a half years.

Manila Peninsula siege

Trillanes filed his certificate of candidacy on February 7, 2007, to run as an independent senatorial candidate despite being detained for complicity in a failed coup d'état. Later, he accepted an invitation from the Genuine Opposition party (GO) as one of its guest candidates to field against the Arroyo administration. He campaigned successfully, while in jail, through the social networking site, Friendster. Trillanes was proclaimed Senator-elect on June 15, 2007 by the Commission on Elections. He is the 2nd youngest senator after Benigno Aquino, Jr. elected at the age of 35 (his partymate Bam Aquino join him as youngest senator elected in 2013)

On July 23, 2007, Trillanes' motion for an "arrangement" with the Makati RTC that would allow him to fulfill his duties as a Senator while under detention, and to allow him to attend the SONA, remained unacted upon. A week after, judge Oscar Pimentel denied Trillanes's plea to be granted leave from detention to attend Senate sessions, and to set up an office inside Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City where he had been detained. In response to Trillanes' continued imprisonment despite his election as Senator, former University of the Philippines president Francisco Nemenzo, Jr. and former vice president Teofisto Guingona, Jr. of civil society launched the "Paglingkurin si Trillanes [Let Trillanes Serve] Movement" in Pasay City on August 23, 2007. Akbayan Representative Risa Hontiveros, Ana Maria Nemenzo of the Freedom from Debt Coalition, opposition leader Jose Alcuaz, and Trillanes' spokesperson Sonny Rivera, were present.

In the Senate election held in May 2007, Trillanes successfully launched a nationwide campaign from his prison cell as he ran and won a seat in the Philippine Senate on a shoestring budget. He was elected to the Senate as guest candidate for the anti-administration Genuine Opposition ticket, and assumed office on June 30, 2007. He made history for being the first Philippine senator to be elected while in jail when more than 11 million people voted him into office. On November 29, 2007, Trillanes, together with the soldiers facing coup d'état charges in connection with the 2003 Oakwood Mutiny, marched out of the courtroom while attending a hearing towards the Peninsula Manila hotel in Makati City, to reiterate their call for the ouster of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Notwithstanding calls from civil society groups to allow Trillanes to serve as Senator pursuant to his election, Judge Oscar Pimentel denied Trillanes's petition to attend Senate sessions on September 20, 2007, for lack of merit, ruling that his incarceration would not be a bar to fulfilling his duties as a Senator. His petition, having been denied by the lower court, Senator Trillanes filed a petition with the Supreme Court of the Philippines, asking that his petition to be allowed to attend Senate sessions be granted. Representing him was his lawyer Reynaldo Robles. Included in said petition was a request that he be allowed to receive visitors in his jail at Fort Bonifacio.

On October 17, 2007, the Supreme Court of the Philippines, in an en banc resolution, directed the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Oscar Pimentel to comment within 10 days on Senator Antonio Trillanes IV's petition. These requests were however later overshadowed by Trillanes' decision to stage another action against Gloria Arroyo's administration. On November 29, 2007, the senator led a siege, this time at the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati. After walking out of his court hearing, he and Brigadier General Danilo Lim led their supporters to the hotel where they staged another coup d' etat calling on the public to join them. Six hours later, after military teams surrounded the hotel and armored personnel carriers broke through the hotel's front doors, Trillanes and his companions surrendered.

Senate

On December 20, 2010, Trillanes was given provisional freedom pending the recognition of the court's amnesty declaration of President Benigno Aquino III. Under Proclamation 75, President Benigno Aquino III granted amnesty to Trillanes and other military personnel who participated in the coup d' etats. He was able for the first time to enter the Senate and perform his duties as a senator.

After formalizing his re-election bid in October 2012, Trillanes filed his certificate of candidacy for 2013 elections at the Commission on Elections main office in Manila. He ran under the banner of the Nacionalista Party, which was allied with the ruling Liberal Party in the 2013 midterm elections. Trillanes was ranked ninth out of the out of the 12 winning senators. Trillanes was proclaimed senator-elect on May 20, 2013 by the Commission on Elections with an official tally of 14,127,722 votes.

In October 2012, Trillanes formalized his re-election bid, filing his certificate of candidacy at the main office of the Commission on Elections in Manila. He ran under the banner of the Nacionalista Party, which is allied with the ruling Liberal Party in the 2013 midterm elections. He formed part of the umbrella coalition of the administration-backed senatorial line-up for the 2013 Philippine Senate election known as the Team PNoy. Formally proclaimed as a Senator in May 2013, Trillanes was re-elected by 14,127,722 Filipinos as per Comelec's official tally of votes.

At the Senate, he is one of the most productive senators in terms of number bills, resolutions and committee reports filed, totalling to 1,109 bills and resolutions, 56 of which have been passed into law from 2007 to present.

During the 16th Congress (2013–2016) he ranks 1st based on the total number of:

During the 15th Congress (2010-2013) he ranked 1st based on the total number of:

In a televised plenary debate in the Senate on September 2012, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile publicly accused Trillanes of working for Chinese interest, in reference to the territorial dispute between the Philippines and China. Posing as an informal emissary of the government of Benigno Aquino III, Trillanes allegedly wanted to rein in then Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario and prevent the United States from being involved in the regional dispute. Enrile then proceeded to read what he said were notes of Philippine Ambassador to China Sonia Brady about a meeting with Trillanes in Beijing, in which Trillanes allegedly told the Chinese that the Philippines cannot enforce its coastal protection, and that the Philippines does not have any interest in the Scarborough Shoal. Senator Trillanes confirmed that he had been acting as "backchannel negotiator" with China for months, keeping then Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario out of the loop. He was then charged of treason and espionage in May 2016 for his series of sixteen secret meetings with officials in Beijing and providing information which resulted in the immediate occupation of Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands by China in 2012.

Vice-presidential campaign

Trillanes declared his intention to run for higher office as vice president in the 2016 national elections. Trillanes, started his vice presidential campaign during the MAGDALO Coalition's general assembly at the Amoranto Sports Complex in Quezon City, and declared his candidacy on October 3. 2015. Trillanes and the Magdalo group has formally showed support to the presidential bid of fellow senator Grace Poe.

Trillanes paid several advertisements featuring schoolchildren and snippets of videos of Rodrigo Duterte on May 5, 2016 on ABS-CBN, which sparked controversy and adverse reaction. The broadcasts were described as "black propaganda." Alan Peter Cayetano petitioned the Taguig regional trial court, and they soon placed a temporary restraining order (TRO) to stop the airing of the anti-Duterte ads for 72 hours. Cayetano told GMA News that the political advertisement was part of a conspiracy theory devised by the Malacanang and other candidates against Duterte.

Trillanes eventually lost the 2016 vice presidential race to Liberal Party Candidate Leni Robredo.

Personal life

Trillanes is married to Arlene G. Orejana, a former member of the Philippine Military Academy corps of professors — a PMA Class 1997 graduate herself — and together they have had three children: Francis Seth, Thea Estelle, and Alan Andrew (who died at 21 days old).

In 2014, he attended the National and International Security program at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.

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