MANILA, 16 December 2005 — A “revolutionary transition government” that a retired general and his cohorts proclaimed in an attempt to oust President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has died at birth.

Police yesterday arrested the 80-year-old ringleader, former Defense Secretary and retired army commander Fortunato Abat, who proclaimed himself president during a gathering of 300 people on Tuesday midnight at the historic Club Filipino in Greenhills, in Manila’s suburb of San Juan.

National police spokesman Chief Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil said Abat will be charged with sedition.

“There can be no other government except this administration. ... There can be no provisional government,” Bataoil told reporters outside the office of the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group in Camp Crame where Abat was taken.

Also taken into custody were former Finance Secretary Salvador Enriquez and former diplomat Roy Señeres.

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales said Abat and the others may also be charged with illegal assembly and an attempted coup d’etat.

Abat’s lawyer, Homobono Adaza, noted that the charges were filed only after his client was arrested.

“They were arrested without charges,” he complained. “And now they don’t want to release them and they want to continue the inquest despite our challenge.”

Chief Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil, police spokesman, earlier admitted that the arrests were made without court warrants.

“This is a citizens’ arrest,” he said. “Abat and his companions were arrested for violating the law. There could be no two governments in the country.”

State Prosecutor Emmanuel Velasco he and his team just conducted an inquest into the charges and will decide the case before 12 noon today.

“If there is no evidence, we will immediately dismiss the case,” he said.

Velasco said Abat and his group would have to stay in police custody until the complaints against them were dismissed.

“They can’t leave as of this moment because there is a complaint against them,” he said.

In a statement he read at the Club Filipino, Abat declared “the existence of a revolutionary transition government and the formation of a transition government council to administer the affairs of government.”

“This is a peaceful takeover of power by people motivated by nothing else but sense of patriotism,” he said, calling on the military and police to protect the sovereign will of the people.

He said a recent “congress” of 300 delegates of his supporters nationwide mandated him to “form a government to confront this crisis that we are in now.”

Abat urged Filipinos to support his transition government, but failed to rally the public to his campaign.

The Arroyo administration had belittled Abat’s bid to establish a transition government as “pathetic and unfortunate,” and urged the public not to take him seriously.

But Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the government still had to take action to stop Abat and his antics.

“We have to do something because we cannot let the people feel there is a violation of law and nothing is being done,” he said.

The military also announced yesterday that it has sacked Abat’s son, army Col. Victor Abat, for urging his colleagues to join the campaign against Arroyo.

Army chief Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon stressed the dismissal of the younger Abat had nothing to do with his father’s actions.

“I have deemed it proper to relieve him because he had been spreading text messages enjoining officers and men of the army to join the destabilization move,” he said.

Arroyo, who has been haunted for months by calls for her ouster, survived an opposition attempt to impeach her in September for allegedly rigging last year’s election and suspected corruption. She has denied the vote-rigging allegations.

She left Sunday for Kuala Lumpur for a Southeast Asian summit amid rumors of a coup in the Philippine capital.

Returning home yesterday, she pretended to ignore the rumors, which were buttressed by the military’s admission that one of the ringleaders of a failed military mutiny in mid 2003 escaped while being escorted to a court hearing. Executive Secretary Ermita said Marine Captain Nicanor Faeldon even went to Club Filipino on Wednesday.

Faeldon yesterday said President Arroyo and the entire government do not deserve the military’s support.

“What then is the basis for the protection she expects the military to extend to her, except the assumption that everything is normal until proven wrong, that a person is innocent until proven guilty?” Faeldon said in a statement released through his lawyer, Roel Pulido.

“And what is the legal basis to claim innocence when there is no chance to prove you guilty,” he said.

Unfazed, Arroyo went on with her official functions, meeting with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who was in Manila to launch a railway project being financed by loans from his country. (Additional input from agencies)