Feliciano member mocks guilty plea rule on amnesty

A former coup plotter who was also member of the commission that looked into the July 2003 Oakwood mutiny on Wednesday branded as “ridiculous" the requirement for alleged mutineers to admit guilt before they could apply for amnesty. “Amnesty is to forget. How can you forget when you put on record everything that you [don’t] want to remember about the offense? Amnesty is not putting on record to remember but to forget. Amnesty is amnesia," said retired Navy commodore Rex Robles. “It’s not harsh but it’s ridiculous...To me, it’s highly-amusing, it’s a product of, I don’t know, overactive mind...It’s hilarious actually," he added. He was reacting to a provision in the Implementing Rules and Regulation (IRR) of President Benigno Aquino III’s amnesty proclamation stating that an admission of guilt is required from those who want to avail of the amnesty. The IRR was prepared by a Department of National Defense (DND) committee tasked to receive and process amnesty applications. Robles, an alleged coup plotter in the 1980s, was a member of the Feliciano Commission that looked into the short-lived Oakwood mutiny in July 2003 staged by hundreds of junior military officers and men. He did not avail of the 1995 amnesty because the case against him was dropped. Some of the participants in the Oakwood uprising stand to benefit from the amnesty proclamation. Robles said even Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Ma. Sison was not required to admit anything when he was granted amnesty during the time of the late President Corazon Aquino, mother of the incumbent President. “If they have precedents, it cannot be in the Philippines because the precedent here in the Philippines is do not admit. Sison is the primary example," Robles said. Under the IRR, the applicants are likewise mandated to recant all their previous statements that are contrary to their admission of guilt and their participation to any of the plots to overthrow the Arroyo government — the July 2003 Oakwood mutiny, the February 2006 Marines standoff, and the November 2007 siege of Manila Peninsula Hotel. Robles said the government might as well call the reprieve a conditional pardon instead of amnesty, if authorities insist on requiring the applicants to admit guilt. “We can call it conditional pardon, but do not call it amnesty and make the concept of amnesty highly laughable. I’m rolling on the floor laughing," he said. Robles also said admitting guilt may have a negative effect on the alleged mutineers’ quest for a new life and new jobs as they would be branded for life as violator of the Constitution, criminal laws, and the Articles of War. Robles noted that these military officers and men rebelled because of those people who they believed violated the Constitution. He also said that requiring the amnesty applicants to admit guilt borders on self-incrimination. - KBK, GMANews.TV