PHILIPPINES: Rebellion leaders face more charges
Updated
Philippine authorities have launched a manhunt for more suspects accused of helping stage yesterday's dramatic but short-lived rebellion against the government. Renegade military officers barricaded themselves inside the Peninsula hotel, where they urged the rest of the army to join them in an uprising against President Gloria Arroyo. The group had broken out of court where they were standing trial over a failed 2003 mutiny. But now it looks like they'll be facing more charges.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speakers: Philippine specialist Dr Mark Turner at the University of Canberra
TURNER: Well it was a very well planned rebellion but it would seem to take on more the element of a protest rather than a rebellion. I think that the minute planning was good but when it came to what they had expected or what they hoped, which was that more elements of the military would join them and that there would be some large people power demonstrations, nothing really happened.
LAM: Indeed as you say the officers call for fellow soldiers to rise against President Arroyo fell on deaf ears. Why was that so?
TURNER: The Philippine military while it stands together at one level, at another level it has always been fragmented. So you had about eight coup attempts; rebellions, mutinies or whatever you want to call them since 1989, yet none of them have been successful or anywhere near successful. And this is because the military do not more as a whole, it tends to be some dissatisfied elements, some particular organisations within the military and the rest of the military wait and see what happens and then decide to join or not to join. And in this case the Arroyo government moved very fast, much faster than it normally does to crush the proposed coup or rebellion or protest, whatever you wish to call it.
LAM: All the same though do you think President Gloria Arroyo might be governing on borrowed time, that she's ruling under the sufferance of the military?
TURNER: Certainly one might argue that she came to power with the assistance of the military and that therefore she has to take into account, serious account whatever the military might be thinking, and she has a lot of problems. She has escaped we might say from at least two impeachment attempts, she's accused of rigging the vote in the last election, she's accused and her family or corruption, there are a litany of complaints against her by people like Senator Trillanes who went to the Peninsular Hotel yesterday and broadcast his message across the nation, and indeed across the world.
LAM: And Senator Trillanes says one of his main reasons was that the Philippines has lost its moral compass if you like. What do you think President Arroyo and her government has to do to stay in office, to placate the military?
TURNER: It's difficult to speculate on that. It seems at the moment that President Arroyo does have the support of the military because significantly there are only 30 people in that hotel, a very small number of military personnel, and no other military personnel indicated that they were coming to the assistance, to the support of Senator Trillanes despite the fact that it was Senator Trillanes did say that this was the event that people, military from the north and south, units would be arriving, would be supporting on a website which was very quickly setup to accompany the protest or the coup.
LAM: Well so the coup leaders really didn't expect to bring the government down, but what do you think Arroyo needs to do, which area in her government does she need to improve on?
TURNER: I think the sort of moral tenor of her administration that she must be seen to be squeaky clean, that the allegations of corruption she must be seen to be well above those, that she's seen to be acting in a very moral and responsible way. I think also that the economy has been doing reasonably well. What hasn't been doing so well is the distribution of the growth in the economy, and that still in the Philippines for the relative economic standing of it there is still an extraordinary high level of poverty.
