Philippine authorities launched a manhunt on Friday for more suspects accused of helping stage a dramatic but short-lived rebellion against the government, which was put down by the military.
The small band of primarily armed-forces officers, who seized a luxury hotel on Thursday to demand the resignation of President Gloria Arroyo, were bundled off by police after a lightning raid, but officials said others were involved.
Police chief Avelino Razon said documents found among debris in the Peninsula Hotel, which Swat teams stormed in a hail of gunfire and tear gas to end the stand-off, indicated ”four groups” took part in the mutiny.
He declined to give details but told reporters at least three renegade officers seen taking over the hotel had managed to get away despite the security cordon and a subsequent overnight curfew in Manila.
”One left a wig at the hotel premises,” Razon told reporters.
Officials said up to 20 other people who were not part of the hotel siege were under investigation, including politicians and businessmen said to have financed the rebellion.
”Some of them are businessmen, but I do not want to be hasty by naming names,” National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales was quoted as saying in the local press.
”We are investigating the possible involvement of certain politicians,” said armed forces chief of staff General Hermogenes Esperon, who also declined to name them.
Aides said Arroyo would pursue her normal schedule, including a previously timetabled 10-day European swing.
Arroyo has faced repeated coup attempts since taking power in 2001, and many of the people involved in Thursday’s mutiny had come directly from a court hearing into their involvement in a 2003 coup attempt.
Razon said some were the ”usual suspects” from previous attempts to bring down the government in the Philippines, where the military, big business and the Catholic church all hold powerful sway over national political life.
The armed forces can make or break a president, and the leaders of Thursday’s uprising — Navy Lieutenant Antonio Trillanes and Brigadier General Danilo Lim — had appealed to the rest of the military to join them.
Instead, after the rebels ignored a deadline to surrender, armoured personnel carriers smashed into the hotel lobby and elite troops poured inside.
The rebels swiftly surrendered, and no one was reported injured in the raid.
Arroyo on Friday said the siege was ”plain defiance of the rule of law”.
”Every setback caused by rebels who speak of change through extra-constitutional means makes it doubly harder for the real heroes to recover and begin anew,” Arroyo said. ”Today is the day to remember what true heroism is all about.”
Despite the rebellion’s failure to attract large numbers of supporters on to the streets, it appeared to have been well-organised.
Police did not stop the rebels on their way to the hotel, witnesses said, and a detailed website, www.sundalo.bravehost.com, appeared as the uprising was launched, which included harsh criticisms of the state of the nation under Arroyo.
Among those found with the rebels was at least one prominent Catholic bishop as well as former Philippine vice-president and vocal Arroyo critic Teofisto Guingona.
Foreign and local press organisations criticised the police for taking dozens of journalists into detention after they refused to leave the scene of the attempted mutiny, despite the impending raid.
Although the journalists were released before dawn, the organisations charged that this was a violation of freedom of the press and was clearly intended to intimidate them and prevent them from airing the views of government critics.
More than a thousand leftist activists staged a rally near the presidential palace on Friday, declaring their support for the mutineers as they waved red banners and placards saying ”Gloria, out now.”
Police said there were no incidents during the rally. — AFP
