Aquino deployed this warship to Panatag in 2012, giving the Chinese the reason to claim the Philippines had militarized the dispute. The US donated it to us a year earlier.
Trillanes claimed that even Aquino himself was livid over del Rosario’s move. He wrote in his aide memoire, quoting Aquino: “Kaya nga sinabihan ko si Albert kung bakit niya pinalabas yung BFAR na hindi ko nalalaman.” (That’s why I asked Albert [del Rosario] why he ordered the BFAR vessels to leave without my permission.) Del Rosario has not disputed Trillanes’ claims, which I first wrote about in 2016 and repeated in several columns