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Rebels seize top Manila hotel
29/11/2007 10:45 - (SA)
Manila - Renegade soldiers who took control of a posh hotel in the Philippines' financial district on Thursday also tapped the internet to demand President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's ouster.
A website, www.sundalo.bravehost.com, was set up as the soldiers, numbering about 30, walked out of a court hearing for rebellion charges and seized the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City.
The site justified the actions of the group, which included Senator Antonio Trillanes, who has remained in detention despite winning in national elections in May.
Although they are all supposed to be in custody, their guards did not stop them from walking out of the court and down the street to the hotel. Instead, the security detail even accompanied them.
Trillanes and the other soldiers are on trial for taking part in a failed mutiny against Arroyo in July 2003 and an aborted coup plot in February 2006.
"A crisis of extreme proportions now confronts our people," the group said in a declaration on the website. "The economy, the rule of law and the moral order lie in ruins."
The renegade soldiers accused the Arroyo administration of committing "high crimes against the Filipino people."
"More and more among our people no longer eat, while the idle rich and the corrupt live like kings," they said. "Minority rule has replaced majority rule."
"We cannot stand idly by while the rule of law, the moral order, the integrity of our institutions, the very future of our country and the people are destroyed by this bogus president," they added.
The soldiers called for "the formation of a new government" after Arroyo steps down, stressing that they "do not seek political power" for themselves.
The website featured photographs of the soldiers and their supporters during their march to the Manila Peninsula and an initial press conference at the hotel.
It also included quotations from military officers under detention for rebellion charges and Philippine heroes that led the revolution against the Spanish colonisers in the late 1800s. - Sapa-dpa
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