Soldiers want Honasan to testify in Oakwood trial

Magdalo soldiers who remain firm in their claim that they did not stage a coup d’ etat against the Arroyo administration during the July 2003 Oakwood mutiny are planning to present Sen. Gregorio Honasan himself as a defense witness.

Lawyer Ernesto Francisco Jr., who is representing eight of the accused soldiers, said he will ask Makati City Regional Trial Court Branch 148 Judge Oscar Pimentel to issue a subpoena against Honasan, himself a former rebel soldier.

According to him, Honasan, supposedly known to the Magdalo group as “Kuya,” will be asked to testify on his National Recovery Program (NRP) and other matters related to his supposed meeting with the mutineers before the Oakwood incident.

Francisco expects to have Honasan debunk a testimony by a prosecution witness on how the former allegedly met with the Magdalo group in San Juan a month before the alleged coup d’ etat was staged and even had a blood ritual with them during the gathering.

In March 2006, Army Capt. Manuel Darius Ressuello testified that he attended a “meeting” somewhere in San Juan on June 4, 2003, which Honasan himself led along with several members of Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class ‘94.

He told the court that the meeting was more than a meeting because what was supposed to be a discussion of the NRP turned out to be the night the Magdalo group officially came into existence.

Ressuello said Honasan was even the one who led a blood compact which involved the wounding of the left arm near the armpit, the signing of a manifesto using one’s own blood, and the oath-taking of the members of the group to use force to bring down the Arroyo administration.

The prosecution witness, who was operations officer of the Philippine Army’s Special Forces School in Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija from November 2002 to August 2003, said now Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, Capt. Gerardo Gambala, and at least four other Magdalo group leaders were present.

Francisco, in presenting Honasan himself as defense witness, expects the latter to counter the testimony and also tell the court about how he negotiated with the Magdalo group in order to help end the Oakwood incident.

Honasan, linked to coup attempts against the Aquino administration in 1987 and 1989, was among those originally charged with coup d’ etat also because of his alleged participation in the mutiny but was eventually cleared of the charges.