Agence France-Presse,
MANILA: Philippine troops stormed a Manila hotel in a flurry of gunfire and tear gas Thursday, forcing the surrender of a band of renegade soldiers who were demanding that President Gloria Arroyo step down.
The rebels, who seized and occupied a luxury hotel to drive home their criticisms of the Arroyo government, gave themselves up after a dramatic confrontation broadcast live on television screens around the world.
After the rebels ignored an army deadline to surrender, two armoured personnel carriers rammed into the building and elite troops poured into the interior, which was awash in tear gas and the sound of bursts of gunfire.
“We are going out for the safety of everybody,” said Senator Antonio Trillanes, one of the rebel leaders, announcing the surrender after the assault began.
“We won't be able to live with our consciences if some of you get hit or get killed in the crossfire,” he said to journalists and others who were inside with the rebels. He said he was ready to face the consequences of his actions.
Arroyo vowed to prosecute the renegade soldiers over the seizure at the Peninsula Hotel in the heart of the capital's financial district.
“The full force of the law will be applied,” Arroyo said on national television late Thursday as a midnight-to-dawn curfew was slapped on Manila.
Trillanes, a navy lieutenant who was elected senator in May while still on trial for a failed 2003 coup against Arroyo, was hauled into a prison bus along with another of the rebellion's leaders, Brigadier General Danilo Lim.
Teofisto Guingona, a former Philippine vice president, had been inside and was also taken away amid a phalanx of police and security forces massed outside the hotel.
It was a quick conclusion to what had apparently been a well orchestrated move by Trillanes and Lim, who led about 30 troops and security guards who barged into the hotel after leaving a court hearing into a 2003 coup attempt.
As they read their demands inside the hotel, an Internet website was announced which had statements from the two men and a litany of complaints against Arroyo, who has survived multiple coup and impeachment attempts.
The renegades urged the president to resign and called on the military, a crucial force in this vast Southeast Asian island nation with the power to make and break its leaders, to turn against her.
The website also urged Filipinos who supported them to gather outside the hotel, in an echo of the “people power” movement that saw millions take to the streets to help force the ouster of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
“We are joining our people in calling for a change in leadership,” Lim said.
“We call on the military to withdraw support for Mrs Arroyo in order to end her unconstitutional and illegal occupation of the presidency,” he said.
“As soldiers, we do not seek political power for ourselves,” says the website, www.sundalo.bravehost.com. Sundalo is a Tagalog word for soldier.
The declaration says the country is facing “a crisis of extreme proportions” and that Arroyo is a “bogus president.”
“The economy, the rule of law and the moral order lie in ruins,” it says.
“Pursuant therefore to our constitutional duty as 'protector of the people and the state,' we have today withdrawn our support from Mrs Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in order to end her unconstitutional and illegal occupation of the presidency.”
There have been at least seven coup attempts in the Philippines since 1986 as the armed forces have maintained a central role in the nation's political life since Marcos was toppled that year.
But Arroyo has been under particular pressure since a tape recording emerged of her allegedly conniving with an election commission official to help orchestrate her 2004 re-election.
She admitted it was a mistake to have called the official when the vote count had not yet been finished, but denied any wrongdoing. The Philippines is regularly ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
The renegade soldiers stormed the hotel Thursday after walking out of a Manila court hearing into the 2003 coup attempt. That uprising failed when the armed forces declined to join about 200 soldiers who launched a rebellion.
