MANILA, 14 August 2003 — A leader of last month’s failed military uprising denied yesterday that he and other renegade soldiers tried to oust President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, saying he tried to warn her of a planned coup but was ignored.
Navy Lt. Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes said he and other military men took over the upscale Oakwood residential building and an adjoining mall in a desperate attempt to inform the public of widespread corruption in the military and avoid arrest.
Trillanes denied that they wanted to reinstate detained former President Joseph Estrada or put opposition Sen. Gregorio Honasan in power.
A senior Arroyo aide testified before the commission on Tuesday that the rebels planned to assassinate Arroyo in an Aug. 4 coup attempt that would have replaced her with a junta led by Honasan.
The July rebellion collapsed within 24 hours after failing to muster wider support. More than 300 rebels were arrested.
Honasan, a reformed 1980s coup plotter who entered politics after he was pardoned in 1995, has gone into hiding and denies government charges he was involved in the latest rebellion.
Asked if he personally wanted to replace Arroyo, Trillanes said: “Definitely not.”
He said the rebels would have respected the “constitutional succession”, with the vice president taking over.
Trillanes said the rebels wanted to implement the “National Recovery Program”, Honasan’s political platform, to rid the military and the government of corruption. It calls for “all brigadier generals upwards relieved.”
Trillanes also denied that his group had earlier met with Honasan to plan the mutiny and appeared to be surprised when showed pictures purporting to show himself and the senator clandestine meeting.
Trillanes said that he met President Arroyo at the presidential palace on July 13 to inform her of military corruption and an intelligence report of a brewing coup. Instead of paying attention, an angry Arroyo allegedly suspected he was part of a planned uprising and ordered him detained, he said.
“The major reason why we went to Oakwood was we were hunted down by this government,” he said.
“I tried, I attempted to tell her about how bad things are in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, but she never gave me a chance ... I was expecting her to at least order an investigation,” Trillanes said.
“I went on to discuss an intelligence report that came to us regarding a palace coup,” Trillanes said, but added that Arroyo berated him and ordered that he be detained and paraded before media.
“She just kept on yakking and yakking,” the officer said. “I cannot find the words to describe how arrogant our president was.”
It was the first time the 32-year-old Trillanes, who wore a white uniform and appeared defiant, appeared in public after being detained and charged with more than 300 middle-rank officers and soldiers following the uprising. His testimony was carried live on nationwide TV.
The commission reminded Trillanes that he remained a military officer and could be court-martialed for unbecoming conduct.
Presidential security group chief Col. Delfin Bangit said Trillanes was the one who sought the meeting, adding that Arroyo herself spent two hours listening to his complaints. “There was never an instance the president gave an instruction to detain him,” he said.
“Mr. Trillanes is lying through his teeth,” Arroyo’s chief of staff Rigoberto Tiglao said.
Davao Blast
Another mutiny leader, army Capt. Milo Maestrecampo, testified how he witnessed poorly equipped soldiers die in battle because helicopters and transportation were scant while military officials drove luxury cars at military headquarters in the capital.
At the height of the mutiny, Maestrecampo alleged that Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes and then military intelligence chief, Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus, were behind the bombing of the airport and wharf in the southern city of Davao in March and April.
Maestrecampo, a member of the army Scout Ranger regiment, alleged that the government was sponsoring terrorism in an attempt to win more military aid from the United States. He disclosed that his commander once ordered him to hurl grenades at mosques in the south after a deadly bomb attack in a crowded seaport in the region that was blamed on Muslim guerrillas. “I could not submit to the order and I told my immediate superior that, `Sir, this is not the enemy, we know they did not hit (the) wharf.’”
Officials have vehemently denied the allegation as “ridiculous.”
Secret Meeting
In Malaca?ang Palace, Colonel Bangit presented the photographs at a press conference in Malaca?ang to counter Trillanes’ claim at the hearing of the Feliciano Commission that he did not take part in the blood compact.
Two photographs purportedly showing Honasan and Trillanes standing before the Magdalo and Philippine flags are proof that the two took part in a blood compact of coup plotters a month before the Oakwood incident, Malaca?ang said.
The photos were the second set of evidence the government presented as proof that Honasan took part in the blood compact with a group of junior military officers to seal their plot.
The first was the affidavit of government star witness Major Perfecto Ragil, who allegedly was a participant in the blood compact in the municipality of San Juan, Metro Manila.
“If you look at it, it’s supposed to be the Magdalo flag there and the Philippine flag ... where they did the rubbing of their blood. And this happened on June 13,” Bangit said. “This is just to show that Lieutenant Trillanes and Senator Honasan met at one point in time.”
The photos show the back of a man (supposedly Honasan) talking to Trillanes near a wall where the Magdalo flag and the blood-spotted Philippine flag were hung. There were several people in the background, including one holding what appeared to be a sheaf of documents.
Bangit refused to name the informant but he said he was a soldier apparently brought to him by a military “handler.”
Asked if the informant was a member of Magdalo, the PSG chief said: “I don’t want to answer that.”
“Whoever that informant was he got so morally bothered that he volunteered that photo,” Tiglao remarked.
Bangit said that the informant was not in military custody but that he could be called to testify by the investigating body.
Also present at the press briefing were presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye, navy chief Vice Admiral Ernesto de Leon and Captain Christopher Magdangal, the president’s military aide.
Magdangal, a member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class ‘95 to which Trillanes and other leaders of the mutiny belong, mentioned some personalities with whom Trillanes had come in contact with.
Magdangal met Trillanes in Malaca?ang on July 13 after Trillanes complained of a death threat. That morning, he and Bangit, his group commander, brought Trillanes to the president. Magdangal later played a big role in ending the mutiny, as he and his other classmates went to Oakwood building to personally persuade their rebellious classmates to end the siege.
Magdangal said Trillanes told him and Bangit on July 13 about how he got together with Honasan because their class solicited funds from the senator some years back.
He recalled that Honasan’s secretary contacted Trillanes two weeks later to invite him to a meeting with Honasan at the Cravings restaurant in Quezon City.
Honasan, who has gone underground after the mutiny, has denied all charges made against him. (Input from agencies)
