In a survey that Newsbreak conducted among senatorial candidates early this year, we asked them how they intended to use their pork barrel allotment (estimated at P200 million a year) should they win.

(Check out the entire survey here)

Antonio Trillanes IV gave us a most straightforward answer: “Should I win as senator, I intend to waive my pork barrel allocation and exhort others to do the same.” The same stand was shared by Sen. Panfilo Lacson and candidates of Ang Kapatiran party.

Just more than a month ago, Senator Trillanes broke that campaign pledge.

He asked for the release of P100 million of his pork barrel, citing projects that included help for poor patients and infrastructure. His lawyer and chief of staff Reynaldo Robles confirmed that Trillanes indeed made that request despite a previous declaration that he would not touch his pork. He changed his mind, Robles said, upon the advice of “people from the Senate, his consultants, and myself.” If he didn’t use it, Robles reasoned out, somebody would.

Surely Trillanes knew that long before he was elected senator, that if he didn’t use his pork somebody would? What was he thinking when he made that campaign pledge, that he could justify breaking it as long as the situation called for it? For that seems to be his emerging track record now, justifying everything—including a sloppy tactical plan at The Pen—as long as he felt that the situation called for it.

Even the cult around him follows that line, choosing not to set any standards for him (like honesty, perhaps, or competence) and justifying his every incoherent move, because, the cult says, the state has closed all avenues for his “grievances.”

Who can blame the guy? In his first court appearance after the fiasco at The Pen, he got a warm welcome from court employees befitting a celebrity. Ah, I must have done right, he must have told himself. After all, this is a country that often finds heroes in myths.

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

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