Thousands of Filipinos Rally Against State of Emergency

Thousands of Filipinos took to the streets in protest Friday, hours after beleaguered President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declared a nationwide state of emergency and banned public rallies.

Arroyo also ordered the arrest of military officers who were allegedly plotting a coup to oust her on the eve of a commemoration today of the “people power” protests that forced President Ferdinand Marcos to step down 20 years ago.

Former President Corazon Aquino, an icon of the 1986 protests and a successor to Marcos, led a march of more than 5,000 people through Manila’s Makati financial district Friday afternoon and called on Arroyo to “make the supreme sacrifice” and step down.

Aquino, once a close ally, turned against Arroyo last year after revelations that she had sought to rig the 2004 election. Arroyo survived impeachment in September despite the release of a tape-recorded telephone conversation in which she appeared to direct a top election official to make sure that she won by a million votes.

Some disgruntled members of the armed forces allegedly have been plotting for months to remove Arroyo through a combination of public protest and military action. They have proposed the creation of a council to rule the country temporarily and have pledged to restore democracy to the Philippines.

In the last two decades, protests have ousted two presidents: Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001. Estrada was succeeded by Arroyo, his vice president. In both cases, military leaders played a crucial part by abandoning the president and supporting a challenger.

Arroyo is doing her best to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen to her.

On Friday, armed forces Chief of Staff Gen. Generoso Senga announced the arrest of several officers, including Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim, who was accused of planning to bring troops to a rally Friday, a day before the anniversary of the protests that brought down Marcos. At the rally, the West Point graduate allegedly planned to declare his opposition to Arroyo in the apparent hope of triggering her ouster.

“We have reduced the threat,” Senga said. “We cannot say that it has been stopped.”

In the declaration, Arroyo said the coup plan was an alliance between right-wing “military adventurists” and communists. Opposition critics said that seemed unlikely; communist rebels have been fighting the army in a low-level guerrilla war for years.

“I am declaring a state of emergency because of the clear threat to the nation,” Arroyo said in a taped speech broadcast on television. “This is my warning against those who threaten the government: The whole weight of the law will fall on your treason.”

Arroyo said the attempted coup had been squelched.

“There were a few who tried to break from the armed forces chain of command, to fight the civilian government and establish a regime outside the constitution,” the president said. “We crushed this attempt.”

The emergency declaration could backfire by generating more opposition at a time when her popularity is low. Critics noted that the state of emergency was akin to the martial law that Marcos enforced in an attempt to maintain his grip on power.

In a separate action, Arroyo revoked all permits for public rallies, including plans to celebrate the ouster of Marcos at the site of the people power protests.

About 5,000 demonstrators gathered there Friday anyway. The crowd was dispersed by police officers using clubs and water cannons. Several dozen people were arrested.

“The president’s proclamation said there was a conspiracy between the extreme left and the extreme right,” said attorney Argee Guevarra, who was among those arrested. “The real issue is extreme poverty, extreme tyranny and extreme plunder.”

The next test for Arroyo could come today, when protesters say they will rally again at the people power site in defiance of the ban. Aquino said she planned to be among those demonstrating.

“I believe that during these times, we should not forget that many sacrificed to regain our democracy,” the former president said. “We cannot just keep quiet because that is what happened during martial law. Our dictator then believed that he can do anything to keep himself in power.”

Police raided two newspapers that had been critical of Arroyo, the English-language Daily Tribune and the Tagalog paper Abante, and prevented some copies of today’s editions from being distributed.

“We’re entering a period of censorship and intimidation never before seen since the 1970s and the 1980s,” said Manuel L. Quezon III, a columnist for the Inquirer newspaper.

In Washington, the U.S. government issued a statement calling on the Philippines “to respect fully the rule of law, protect civil liberties and human rights, and reject violence.”