2 Oakwood mutineers guilty of coup charges

MANILA, Philippines - Two Magdalo soldiers who took part in the mutiny at the then Oakwood (now Ascott) Hotel in Makati City in 2003 were found guilty of coup charges by a local court yesterday.

Former first lieutenants Rex Bolo and Lawrence San Juan were meted six to 12 years imprisonment by Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Andres Bartolome Soriano.

The court found them guilty of “committing coup d’ etat as participants and not as leaders.”

Soriano inherited the case from retired Judge Oscar Pimentel.

Crystal Tenorio, lawyer of the two former Army officers, told reporters they would seek bail for their temporary liberty.

San Juan and Bolo were transferred to the Philippine Army’s custody immediately after the promulgation of their case.

Of the 31 original accused, only the two had remained as defendants in the case after they decided not to join their fellow Magdalos, including re-electionist Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, in seeking amnesty from the government for staging the Oakwood mutiny on July 27, 2003.

President Aquino granted amnesty to the Magdalo soldiers in October 2010.

In March 2007, San Juan told the court he wanted to change his plea from “not guilty” of coup d’etat to “guilty” of conspiracy to commit coup d’etat “so as to finally serve time for the crime and move on with his life.”

The Department of Justice’s prosecution panel, which presented a total of 13 witnesses in the seven-year-old trial, conformed with San Juan’s manifestation, but Pimentel denied it in August 2007.

Pimentel was readying his 26-page decision when the amnesty was granted to Trillanes and 28 other Magdalo officers.

Aquino issued Proclamation No. 75 on Nov. 24, 2010, granting amnesty to some 400 active and former personnel of the military, police force and their supporters who may have committed crimes in connection with the Oakwood mutiny, the Marines’ standoff, and the Manila Peninsula incident during the Arroyo administration.

Both the House of Representatives and the Senate gave their concurrences to the amnesty less than a month later.

The 2003 uprising, in which foreign tourists and diplomats were briefly trapped as about 300 rebels seized part of Manila’s financial district, was in protest against alleged corruption in the previous administration.

Then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had pardoned some of the mutineers after they pleaded guilty in court and publicly apologized for their action.

Tenorio told reporters after the promulgation that she had expected an acquittal for his clients.

“I was really expecting an acquittal. In the elements of the crime, a coup d’etat means an attack on a government installation. They had occupied a hotel,” she said.

Tenorio said San Juan and Bolo did not avail themselves of amnesty as it would mean discharge from the Army.

“The amnesty has a collatilla that bars them from resuming their duties in the Army,” she said.

The lawyer said they would file an appeal with the Court of Appeals.

Meanwhile, the Army said there is no more adventurism in the military.

“The situation now is different. All complaints are being addressed so there are no more uprisings, ” Army spokesman Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang said.

“(The ruling) will serve as a reminder that there are legitimate ways to air grievance and holding coups is not one of them,” he added.              â€“ With Alexis Romero