Coup Threat Crushed by Aquino’s Loyalists : 42 Die; Many Mutineers in Manila Flee

A tough-talking President Corazon Aquino and her loyalist forces Friday crushed the gravest threat to her 18-month-old government.

Thousands of pro-government troops used fighter planes, helicopter gunships, howitzers and bazookas during a 20-hour battle to dislodge nearly 1,000 rebellious soldiers from key military camps and broadcast stations throughout the country.

Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, the military chief of staff, declared this morning that Aquino’s government “has the country completely under control.” Ramos said government troops had retaken a large military camp that had been seized by the rebels north of Manila, as well as the Philippine military headquarters in Manila’s Camp Aguinaldo, which the rebel forces had used as their base.

Talking to reporters as he jogged around the newly recaptured Aguinaldo grounds, Ramos said that he had relieved a rebel general in the central Philippines of his command, placed him under arrest and restored Manila’s control over the Philippines’ second-largest city, Cebu. The region’s military commander, Brig. Gen. Edgardo Abenina, had hoisted the rebel flag over all key military installations in Cebu on Friday afternoon.

An exact toll of casualties was still not known more than 24 hours after the mutiny began, but initial reports today from hospitals, military sources and eyewitnesses showed that at least 42 people had been killed in the uprising and 275 injured, including Aquino’s only son.

Public fear deepened with the news that, despite Ramos’ claim to have put down the mutiny, most of the renegade soldiers had managed to escape.

The capital gradually returned to normal this morning, with its usual traffic jams and the customary Saturday morning Roman Catholic prayer programs on all national television stations.

Markets were jammed with shoppers, and newspapers were filled with headlines proclaiming that the coup attempt had been crushed.

Following Ramos’ announcement, government forces began dismantling strongly fortified roadblocks just outside Manila on all highways leading to the city. The barricades were set up shortly after midnight in response to intelligence reports that a new rebel force, mobilized in the countryside north of Manila, was planning to move on the capital today.

But the nation remained stunned after the bloodiest mutiny in the history of the modern armed forces left many civilian bystanders as well as more than a dozen soldiers dead and scores more seriously injured after a day of fighting that turned parts of Manila into combat zones.

350 Rebels Surrender

In an impromptu press conference late Friday, military spokesman Col. Honesto Isleta said that at least 113 of the rebellious soldiers had surrendered to loyalist forces, who had regained control of two television stations and two Manila military camps seized by the mutineers. Later, Ramos was quoted by the government news agency as saying that a total of 350 rebels had surrendered by midnight Friday.

Journalists and other eyewitnesses saw many truckloads of heavily armed rebel soldiers leaving the camps unchallenged, and the leader of the uprising, Col. Gregorio Honasan, reportedly left the rebels’ stronghold at Philippine military headquarters by civilian helicopter Friday afternoon.

Ramos would not speculate during today’s press conference on Honasan’s whereabouts. But he sharply criticized the Philippine media for “glorifying” the rebel troops, whom he called “Rambos and cowboys.”

‘He Left His Post’

“Why is Gringo so glorified by the media after what he has done?” Ramos said, using Honasan’s widely known nickname. Ramos blamed Honasan for the dozens of civilian deaths, adding, “He left his post, and abandoned his men.”

Honasan, an important figure in the successful February, 1986, military-led uprising that toppled then-President Ferdinand E. Marcos, is the former security chief of Juan Ponce Enrile, who, with Ramos, led the 1986 coup and served as defense minister in Aquino’s Cabinet until she fired him last November.

Enrile, accused in the recent past of plotting against Aquino, is a senator in the newly elected national Congress. He has not been seen nor has he issued a public statement since Friday’s uprising began about 1 a.m. with a swift strike by six mutinous soldiers against the guards at Aquino’s presidential palace.

Seen as a Diversion

Military analysts now believe the palace attack was a diversion from Honasan’s real target of the military headquarters at Camp Aguinaldo.

In public statements during the uprising Friday, Honasan said that he remains staunchly anti-Marcos and that he and his followers were acting against Aquino’s government because they believe it is beginning to make the same mistakes that Marcos did during his 20 years of authoritarian rule.

Aquino, who came to power after the coup led by Enrile, Ramos and Honasan used Camp Aguinaldo as a base to drive Marcos into exile, took her strongest public stand yet against various dissident elements that now have made six major coup attempts against her government in its year and a half in office.

Appearing stern-faced on national television in a bright green dress, Aquino called Honasan and his men “traitors” and “monsters” who killed innocent civilians.

In ordering her loyalists to attack Camp Aguinaldo, which Honasan used as his staging area, Aquino said: “I have nothing to say to these traitors. There will be no terms.”

Aquino also rejected claims made by the mutinous troops in a prepared statement that they were “the soldiers of the people.” The statement was aired several times on television stations seized by the rebels.

‘Gunned Down Civilians’

“The rebels say they mean the people no harm,” Aquino said. “But outside Malacanang (the presidential complex that includes Aquino’s offices and residence) this morning, they gunned down innocent civilians who had cheered for our government.

“The majority of those hurt or killed by the rebels have been civilians.”

The president then began to weep as she recounted how her only son, Benigno S. Aquino III, was shot and wounded twice outside the palace gates, while three of his bodyguards were killed by the rebel forces.

Fired Indiscriminately

Independent eyewitnesses at the scene of the palace attack confirmed that the rebels indiscriminately sprayed anyone who moved with automatic weapons fire.

“I will not allow these people, who are lying to us again, to return the cruelty of the past dictatorship,” Aquino said, switching to Tagalog, the chief native language of the Philippines. “If we are united, we can defeat these monsters.”

The reports of hospital spokesmen, as well as eyewitnesses, indicated that the great majority of casualties during the uprising occurred among the civilian population.

Friday’s fighting broke out in several parts of Manila, and the fire from mortars and small arms forced evacuations in half a dozen residential neighborhoods near the television stations and military camps where fighting was most intense.

Civilians Watch Combat

Civilian bystanders flocked by the thousands to those zones to watch the outbreaks as if they were three-dimensional war movies.

Ramos blasted Manila’s city officials for failing to keep the crowds away from the action. “The political leaders should have controlled the civilians. Instead, there were many pictures of politicians holding high-powered firearms and posing in combat positions with soldiers,” Ramos said. However, Ramos had high praise for Aquino, her Cabinet and congressional leaders for being “totally supportive” of the intensive military operation.

The worst fighting occurred at Manila’s two major military camps, Aguinaldo and Crame, across from each other on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, which is usually one of Manila’s busiest arteries. Crame is the headquarters of the national Philippine Constabulary, where Ramos established his headquarters to oust the rebels from their stronghold in Aguinaldo.

Traffic was sealed off for several miles in both directions as elements within the camps exchanged mortar and bazooka shells, artillery fire and hundreds of thousands of machine-gun rounds. The Manila airport was closed to international and domestic flights at 6 p.m. Friday. International flights were resumed after 12 hours, but domestic flights were grounded indefinitely.

During most of the battle, Ramos’ loyalist force consisted almost entirely of Philippine Constabulary troops, a special combat police force trained in urban counterterrorism. But it was not until his forces were joined by army tanks and marine units that Ramos scored what he called his decisive victory in the battle.

Still, military spokesman Isleta said, only 28 of the 300 rebel soldiers that the government claimed were inside Camp Aguinaldo had surrendered as of early this morning.

Fears of Another Attempt

“The battle is over,” commented one Western military observer at the battle scene when Ramos had secured Camp Aguinaldo just before 7 p.m. Friday, “but it may be that the war has just begun.”

Several sources among the military renegades said that a new rebel force was expected to enter the fray in Manila during the early hours today. Most of Honasan’s supporters had come from the army’s Ft. Magsaysay in a rural province north of Manila. Another rural military camp in the same region, Camp Olivas, was reportedly still under rebel control late Friday night, and military analysts suspected that rebel reinforcements might come from those camps as well.

Col. Isleta conceded to reporters Friday night that Col. Honasan’s whereabouts were unknown, adding, “He will be lucky if he is caught alive, because the orders were to shoot to kill.”

Isleta added that Aquino and Ramos should be applauded for their handling of Friday’s uprising.

“We have always been accused of being too soft and wishy-washy,” he said, alluding to previous coup attempts in which plotters received little more than slaps on the wrist. “Now we have shown that this will not be tolerated. We are decisive. Now, someone will think twice before he tries something like this.”