When Antonio Trillanes IV realized that not even a tiny fraction of the 11 million people who voted for him would show up at the Manila Peninsula Hotel that rainy Thursday, he decided to surrender. A reporter who saw him up close said that the rebel-cum-senator was shaking as soldiers brought him to the bus after he accepted defeat.

He looked terribly dejected and his face was covered with sweat. All the bravado he earlier showed disappeared. He may have felt like a rock star during the few hours of the hotel siege, when reporters, cameramen, and photographers crowded around him, but at the end of his failed move, it was back to detention, his reputation in tatters.

Why do we say this? Because he failed to live up to his campaign image. He billed himself as the “Thrill of Trillanes.” The poster says it all: “Astig! Sagad ang Tapang! Hindi Susuko! Ipaglalaban Ka!”

Campaign talk, after all, is cheap. Real-life decisions are the acid test.

Now, a more apt slogan would be: “The Hype of Trillanes.”

The Inside Track is Newsbreak's intelligencer section. It features the latest buzz on juicy political and business goings on.

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