Gloria Arroyo’s grip on the Philippine presidency appeared tenuous on Sunday night after more than 100 marines openly defied her rule by rallying around commanders wanting to withdraw from the chain of command.
The crack troops, backed by several thousand opposition and civil society figures who flocked to their Manila base, ended the mini-rebellion after five hours and agreed to respect their superiors.
But the wider turmoil, which began last June when Arroyo was accused of rigging the 2004 presidential election, is thought to be far from over. The government said on Sunday that dozens of people still faced arrest over an alleged attempted coup last Friday and that the state of emergency announced the same day remains in force.
Late on Sunday night hundreds of students opposed to Arroyo began to gather at the University of the Philippines (UP) and the civilian leaders who had supported the marines, including former president and pro-democracy icon Corazon Aquino, were considering whether to join them.
”We don’t know if we should go to UP or just go home and wait to be arrested as we’re all pretty compromised now,” one person who had been in the camp told the Guardian.
The military insisted the incident at the Fort Boniface base was merely an internal misunderstanding after the marines’ commander, Major General Renato Miranda, was relieved of his duties.
”I’ve already conferred with my commanders and everything’s already settled,” the new commander, Brigadier Nelson Allaga said, adding that Miranda’s move was a standard rotation.
But people at the base told the Guardian that Miranda and a senior subordinate, Colonel Ariel Querubin, who admitted on Sunday that he had tried to defy orders and take troops to a civilian opposition rally on Friday, wanted to stage a rebellion.
Querubin appealed for people to head to the camp to protect them ”from aggression” and about 5 000 Manila residents turned out. Riot police twice tried to disperse the crowd but retreated rather than use force once they realised the extent of the protesters’ determination to stay put.
The marines eventually admitted defeat after a number of middle and junior ranking officers declined to join them. ”I don’t want to divide the corps,” Miranda told the officers and retired general present. ”I don’t want to get anybody hurt.”
It is not clear how the troops would have reacted if the officers had withdrawn support for Arroyo.
The latest drama for Arroyo began in the early hours of Friday when the commander of the elite scout ranger regiment was detained for allegedly planning to lead troops to incite crowds at rallies against the president.
Arroyo then declared a state of emergency and banned rallies. An opposition-leaning newspaper was raided on Friday night and a former police chief and leftwing congressman were detained on Saturday.
The authoritarian measures were widely condemned, with the former president Fidel Ramos describing them as ”Marcosian”, a reference to the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Mike Defensor, the president’s chief of staff, said on Sunday that the threat had not been completely contained and that more arrests were probable.
Opposition to Arroyo (58) a United States-trained economist, has been mounting steadily since June when a tape recording emerged of a conversation she had with a member of the election commission during the vote-counting during the presidential poll the previous year. It was alleged that Arroyo was putting pressure on the commissioner to fiddle the results in her favour but the president denied this and it was never proved.
Attempts to impeach Arroyo failed because she controls congress through a network of patronage rather than party loyalty.
She declared a state of emergency for a few days last year but diplomats say the current situation is much worse for her.
”Arroyo is by no means certain to fall,” one western diplomat said. ”But there is a gathering momentum to the opposition and unless she settles the tape scandal her problems are not going to go away and could easily get much worse.”
Filipino politicians agree that Arroyo is unlikely to be ousted in the immediate future unless the military turns against her, despite her lack of warmth towards, and empathy with, the general public.
”There’s a disgruntlement, there is unhappiness but it hasn’t reached critical mass yet,” said Senator Mar Roxas. ”The average person may be angry and disappointed but not yet enough to force the issue on the streets.” – Guardian Unlimited Â