Arroyo Under Siege: Makati Standoff Ends, Regime Declares Curfew

The rebel soldiers accused Arroyo of stealing the presidency in the 2004 elections, among other alleged crimes. In a statement read during a news conference inside the hotel, Lim said: “We have individually and collectively tried all means to resolve this legitimacy issue through the normal electoral, judicial, and congressional processes but Mrs. Arroyo used naked power” to stop attempts to impeach her.

Trillanes said he was particularly upset that he has not been allowed to serve his term as senator. “The people voted for me so that I can stand up for their rights but they didn’t allow me to serve,” he told reporters in the lobby.

The two leaders and nearly 30 other soldiers walked out of their hearing at a nearby civilian court while the court was on break. They then marched to the Peninsula Manila, overwhelmed the hotel security guards, held a press briefing, and locked down the premises.

Hotel guests, many of them foreigners, were eventually allowed to leave, dozens of them forming a line to a bus that would bring them to the Makati Shangrila Hotel just across the street.

The Peninsula Manila lobby, one of the most opulent in the country, was quickly consumed by the chaos as dozens of uniformed soldiers with red arm bands tied the glass doors with ropes, and dozens of journalists and remaining guests watched their every move. Hotel management later said the situation inside was generally calm.

Leaders of the country’s political opposition, particularly Guingona and a couple of Catholic bishops, rushed to the hotel to give their support to the rebels, saying that this could be another “People Power” uprising similar to the two such events that took place in 1986 and 2001.

Dozens of supporters gathered a few blocks from the hotel. Officials of the Arroyo administration initially tried to dismiss the situation at the hotel, with Arroyo’s spokesmen refusing to even call it an uprising.

“It’s a situation but we’re on top of the situation,” said the spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, at a news briefing inside the presidential palace.

“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.”

Coup attempts and mutinies are not unusual in the Philippines, which has seen more than a dozen of these since the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. (PinoyPress)