Soldiers taking part in the latest military uprising are drawn from the military’s elite special warfare fighting units and backed by shadowy civilian players, officials said yesterday.
But the group, calling themselves Magdalo, has failed to generate much high-level military support, and the 200-odd rebels have holed up inside a booby-trapped Oakwood Premier Ayala Center, a high-rise luxury apartment complex located in Makati City, the country’s financial district.
Some of them appear ready to fight a vastly superior military force that now encircles them, although some 50 initially surrendered in the afternoon.
The mutineers, led by a boyish-looking 32-year-old captain who wrote a masters thesis on corruption in the Navy at the University of the Philippines (UP), accused the government of corruption and supporting terrorism, and of mismanaging soldiers’ pension funds.
The rebel leaders "are primarily from the classes of 1995 to 1997" of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), which produces most of the military’s officer corps, Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes said.
Their Navy officer frontman, Lt. Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes IV, comes from a military family and his father also graduated from the PMA, family friends said. His wife, Army Capt. Arlene Orejana-Trillanes, also of Class 1997, is a member of PMA Corps of Professors for the past three years.
The others include a number of his former PMA classmates, who commanded battalions of the elite Army Scout Rangers and the Navy’s Special Warfare Group, a unit trained for demolition and equipped with high explosives.
The STAR also learned three of the rebel officers who took part in the rebellion have been trained by US Special Forces during the Balikatan 02-1 training in Basilan last year.
They are Capt. Gerardo Gambala, of the 32nd Infantry Battalion; Capt. Albert Baloloy and 1Lt. Jose Enrico Demetrio Dingle, of the Scout Ranger Battalion and 1Lt. Laurence San Juan, a member of the first batch of the US trained Light Reaction Company (LRC).
A military source disclosed that the three are deadly snipers who figured in several encounters with the Abu Sayyaf while trying to rescue the American missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham last year in Basilan.
Preparing themselves for the long fight against the numerically superior government troops, Trillanes said they would hold out "as long as it takes."
Wearing a red armband with the red sun symbol of the Magdalo faction of the Katipunan, Trillanes said their move was of a "higher calling" that had the support of their families.
The Katipunan, a rebel group who fought the Spanish colonizers in the late 1800s, had a power struggle of their own which led into the creation of two factions, namely the Magdalo and the Magdiwang group of founder, Andres Bonifacio.
The Magdalo faction, to which the country’s first president Emilio Aguinaldo belonged, thought that the changed conditions at the time necessitated the organization of a new government to supersede the Katipunan, which they believed had outlived its usefulness.
True to their Magdalo calling, Trillanes said they are merely expressing their grievances against the present government.
"This is an expression. There is no coup. You are looking for a peaceful means, this is it. We have explosives and guns to protect ourselves because if they (government forces) round us up, hindi na kami magsasalita (there will be no talking)," Trillanes said.
Trillanes and his group junked all proposals for negotiations demanding that President Arroyo should resign first.
"What can she (do), what can they propose in a negotiation. Wala na (no more)," he said.
Trillanes said neither does his group have someone in mind to replace Mrs. Arroyo. He said Mrs. Arroyo’s replacement will come at an opportune time, based on the "dynamics of the situation."
When asked about the adverse effects on the economy on their move. Trillanes said: "Everything comes at a price. If after this, we can get rid of corruption, then we can recoup whatever we lost."
"And what economy are we talking about? Maganda ba ang economy natin? (Is our economy that good?)," he said.
Trillanes said their move was not deliberately planned. He said their action was "spontaneous," aimed in expressing their grievances against the government.
The government, for its part, had known for some time that "they have problems and they have expressed certain complaints. What we did not know was that they would rise up," Reyes said.
"In terms of the security of the nation, I don’t think there is anything to worry about," Senate President Franklin Drilon added.
Drilon said he is now worried about the economic fallout, particularly on foreign investment because of the mutiny.
"This incident is confined to Makati. This group does not have widespread support from officials of the armed forces," Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said.
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a retired Marine general and former Armed Forces chief of staff who put down the bloodiest of seven coup attempts against the Corazon Aquino presidency in 1989, said it was a small-scale uprising.
"During my time I fought entire brigades," said Biazon, who visited the rebels yesterday afternoon in an effort to convince them to end their rebellion.
PMA graduates also produced the core leadership of the 1980s coups.
Most were later pardoned as part of a peace settlement with the government in the early 1990s, but there were accusations against Sen. Gregorio Honasan, who led at least two coup attempts, of a role in the present mutiny. He denied the allegations.
Trillanes, for his part, also denied Magdalo was supporting Honasan’s presidential ambitions.
"The National Recovery Program (of Honasan) is our only link with him," Trillanes said.
"It (NRP) reflected the reforms that we wanted in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)," he added.
According to Mrs. Arroyo, Trillanes and his group "are being supported by known and unknown leaders, conspirators and plotters in the government service and outside the government."
Biazon added the current rebels lacked the "personalities" or "issues" that could rally support. "Their issues are internal" to the Armed Forces, he said. – With Roel Pareño, Artemio Dumlao, AFP