Philippine coup suspects storm out of court hearing, demand Arroyo’s resignation

By JIM GOMEZ,

AP

Posted: 2007-11-29 02:58:29

MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Several military officers defied a deadline to surrender after storming out of their coup trial Thursday, taking over an upscale hotel and demanding that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo resign.

Joined by other dissident officers and leaders from the opposition and the left, they clearly were trying to foster the Philippines third “people power” revolt, making phone calls and sending cell phone text messages seeking to generate crowds to support them.

But as the day wore on, few people turned out for the latest effort to oust Arroyo, who has survived at least three coup plots and three impeachment efforts during nearly seven tumultuous years in power.

Manila Police Chief Geary Barias told the dissidents to vacate the hotel by 3 p.m. (0700 GMT) or face arrest on new warrants for contempt of court.

The deadline passed with the officers refusing to leave and posting uniformed troops with M-16 rifles guarding stairways leading to the second floor of the Peninsula hotel where the dissidents set up a command center in a function room.

“One thing I can assure you is we have more than enough willpower, fighting spirit to bring this government down,” said Antonio Trillanes, one of the officers on trial who was elected to the Senate in May, campaigning from detention. “We want change.”

The trial is over a 2003 insurrection in which troops commandeered a shopping center and demanded Arroyo’s ouster.

Hundreds of police and troops were deployed outside the hotel. Hotel guests and staff were evacuated, and police asked hundreds of journalists to leave for their own safety.

Supporters of the dissident officers held out hope that they might succeed in the latest effort to oust Arroyo.

“This is like EDSA,” former Vice President Teofisto Guingona, an opposition campaigner, said after using a glass of water to toast a victory by anti-Arroyo forces. EDSA is the name of the highway that was the site of the country’s two “people power” revolts.

It was unclear where the rest of the often-restive military’s loyalties lay.

“My orders now are to rearrest them and take them back to custody, to apply the law,” Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro said. “We want to assure our people that we will apply the full force of the law to maintain peace and order in the area and the rest of the country.”

Arroyo called an emergency Cabinet meeting. The Presidential Security Group, which provides security at the presidential palace, went on red alert.

Escorted by military police, who apparently did not prevent them from leaving the court, the defendants marched to the Peninsula hotel and pushed away guards at the entrance.

They were joined by Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim – suspected of involvement in another failed coup plot last year – who issued a statement urging Arroyo to resign and asking the armed forces to withdraw support for her.

In the statement, read on nationwide TV, Lim called for the formation of a new government.

“Mrs. Arroyo stole the presidency from Estrada, and later manipulated the results of 2004 elections,” Lim said.

Arroyo took over the presidency when predecessor Joseph Estrada was ousted in the second “people power” revolt in January 2001, and opponents have criticized the legitimacy of her rule ever since. She also has been fighting allegations that she rigged the 2004 elections that gave her a six-year term.

“We tried to restore legitimacy, but she used naked power … to frustrate us,” Lim said. “We should use all we can to prevent the sliding back into corruption. We are withdrawing support from this government and other units will also do so.”

Former Vice President Guingona, left-wing leaders and two Roman Catholic bishops joined the military men at the hotel.

“We have to bring people here to guard our perimeters,” Trillanes told them. A leftist leader told him, after a phone call, that 3,000 members of one union were on the way.

National police chief Avelino Razon urged people to stay away from the hotel.

The officers on trial were among 300 soldiers who took over the ritzy Oakwood hotel and a nearby shopping center in Makati in July 2003, rigging the area with bombs and demanding Arroyo’s resignation. They denounced the government and military corruption, but were accused of staging a failed coup. They surrendered after the daylong uprising.