Philippines Senator Antonio Trillanes has launched another blistering tirade against President Rodrigo Duterte saying Filipinos should rethink about a leader who fails to keep his own promises and has acted against his own promises.
"Open your eyes. Niloloko ka na. Niloloko na tayong lahat (You are being fooled. We are all being fooled)," the senator said. Trillanes is the fiercest critic of Duterte, who romped home to a mighty win in the presidential election but heaped international scorn on himself immediately after that with a series of words and actions.
Trillanes squarely blamed Duterte for the bloody campaign against the drug mafia which he said has broken all laws of the land. The senator said Duterte ran death squads in the past and he is running death squads right now.
In the latest attack against the president, Trillanes tore into Duterte saying he has broken all promises. His broken pledges include the promises not to run for the land's highest post and then most recently, the promise to stop cursing.
When Trillanes was asked to comment on how Duterte broke his promises, he told Philippine Daily Inquirer: "For me, that's not new."
"He said he will not run... Filipinos just rode along... You didn't see, you've been had.... There's something wrong with you when you allow yourselves to be fooled," he said at a Senate media forum.
Trillanes also pointed out that he feels "there's something wrong with the Filipino people."In spite of Duterte's frequent turnarounds on official pronouncements, the public is still strongly supporting him. He said there is lack of response regarding the "still growing death toll in the President's fierce war on drugs". He noted that there should be "a day of reckoning for Duterte".
"When someone kills, he should be held accountable. If we are angry at thieves, how much more at murderers? There's something wrong about our morals these days," Trillanes said.
He believes that Duterte is behind the series of drug-related deaths exactly the way he was responsible for the killings of drug suspects in Davao City during his rule being a mayor.
The senator said: "I am firm in my belief that President Duterte was behind the DDS (Davao Death Squad) in Davao City and the extrajudicial killings now happening in our country. If he was not the one behind this, then why can't he stop it? Instead, he is even encouraging the killings. This is the big problem we're facing here."