Former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV is giving President Duterte a “flat zero” rating in his five years in office “because he killed his people.”
Saying that he needs to be “very objective” on grading the Chief Executive, the former senator argued that heads of states “don’t do that (kill their own people).”
“That’s how I’m going to rate Mr. Duterte because he turned back on his mandate as defined in the Constitution,” he said during the fifth townhall meeting organized by the US Filipinos for Good Governance (USFGG) and INCITEGov aired live on Facebook by Tindig Pilipinas.
Trillanes, now a professor, compared how he rated Duterte to German dictator Adolf Hitler who, even though was responsible for the Autobahn Highway that is the basis of the first modern national expressway system and is still being used in Germany today, is seen by modern-day Germans as someone they should be ashamed of.
Similar to Duterte, Trillanes said that “that (Autobahn) doesn’t matter because he let his country to destruction and despair after.”
READ: Duterte’s ‘legacy’ is the killings, says Trillanes
The President is scheduled to deliver his last State of the Nation Address (SONA) on Monday, July 26, at the Batasang Pambansa in Quezon City.
Activists, opposition groups, and even ordinary citizens trooped to the complex despite the strict checkpoints around Metro Manila to rally against Duterte.
Trillanes is already assuming that the President’s SONA will not reflect the reality on the ground.
“The only thing they need to do is to compare the statements during the SONA with reality, with what they are feeling on the ground. The people who are out of jobs, probably they have a relative or two who have been displaced because of the incompetence of the Duterte administration,” he said.
READ: The Duterte legacy on spotlight
The staunch critic of Duterte also mentioned the families of those who have been killed in the President’s bloody war on drugs since they can oppose what will, later on, be claimed in his SONA.
Government figures said that there are about 6,000 people who died because of the drug war, but human rights groups claimed the number can be as high as 12,000 since many families of the drug victims don’t have the courage to file cases.
“Most likely they are feeling the cost of living, the higher cost of living rather right now compared to five years ago, so they just need to compare all these statements later on,” Trillanes said.
On Monday, he also released a video on Facebook encouraging people to register and vote for the right candidates in the 2022 polls. The video showed headlines related to corruption and extrajudicial killings under the Duterte administration.
READ: Trillanes urges Pinoys: Register, vote in 2022
“Panonoorin na lang ba natin ang ganito nilang mga gawain? Ang sama-sama natin tinig, sa boto iparinig. Walang magbabago kung hindi ka boboto (Are we just going to watch them do these? Let our voices be heard through our votes. Nothing will change if you are not going to vote),” Trillanes said in the post.
He reminded the public that the last day of voter’s registration is set on September 30 by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).