‘Where other politicians may be quicker to compromise or make a U-turn, Sonny stays the course.’
I DON’T remember the month anymore but sometime in 2003, my friend Ellen Tordesillas gave me a call out of the blue: “Huy JB, may kotse ka? Samahan mo ako pupunta ako sa Fort Bonifacio, may dadalhin ako sa stockade.”
Ever the gentleman, I gladly picked up Ellen and drove her to the stockade. There we came down from my car and I followed her to a sentry point where a logbook was open. “Wag mo isulat pangalan mo,” she said. If I recall right, she added, “Tinitignan ni Esperon ‘yan.” The dutiful person in me complied and I wrote down in the logbook “Bobby Manzano.”
My colleague at Coke had no idea.
That’s when I realized who she was visiting: the newly incarcerated Magdalo leaders fresh from their aborted staycation at Oakwood in Glorietta. Now these officers had more spartan accommodations.
And that’s when I first met Antonio Trillanes IV. I remember our exchange. I told him: “I admire your courage and conviction but not your taste in soft drinks.” You see, their tables were dotted with blue soda. “This is all we have here sir,” he said, and I vowed to fix that. That’s why from 2003 onwards, up to the present, Sonny Trillanes drinks only red soda.
But I digress.
Trillanes went on to become “Sen Sonny,” one of a handful of senators of the republic I know personally. Of the older generation, I worked for the late Rene Cayetano; in my UP student days for a while, I was in close contact with then-UP President and later SP Edgardo Angara. Richard Gordon was and remains a close friend for whom I also worked. Serge Osmeña I consider one of the best senators no longer in office.
JPE I always viewed with fascination but from a distance.
Of the younger generation, I, of course, grew up with Alan and Pia Cayetano due to my work for their father. SP Chiz, SP Koko and Kiko were contemporaries in UP. Joel V I met through common friends. I met Sen. Grace when I was helping document the “Hello Garci” steal in videos long before she became a senator. And we had projects with Luntiang Pilipinas of Loren when she was an oft-mentioned name for the veepstakes, and higher.
All the above are, like Sonny Trillanes, political animals. They know how to read the tea leaves and survive – if that means being pragmatic, even opportunistic. These are characteristics of great importance to a politician who wishes to remain relevant for years. If a politician doesn’t bend like the bamboo when the gales are strong, he risks being broken or uprooted.
But Sonny Trillanes, by choice, looks at politics in a “slightly” different way. Where other politicians may be quicker to compromise or make a U-turn, Sonny stays the course. For better or worse, he could be unwavering on his points of view if not his principles, and in the past, he chose to stay in jail rather than agree to admit that Oakwood was a mistake because deep in his heart he knows it was not.
The Manila Peninsula story is a story of a young politician unwavering in his principles who came face to face with old pols quick to compromise on theirs. For the latter who at first committed and then stayed away at the last minute, the question that wasn’t answered to their satisfaction at Manila Pen was “What is in it for me?”
I’ve been asked several times to describe my many friends in or formerly in government and I try to be as honest as libel laws allow. I’ve never agreed 100% with everything all of them have said or done, more with some than with others. But for Trillanes – whose hard work is partly at the root of the troubles former President Duterte faces now – I describe him as the one among everyone else I’d choose if all I had was one choice, to be in the trenches with.
You see, when push comes to shove and the faint of heart starts trembling at the knees, I know I will find strength from the fact that my companion in the trenches is unwavering.
