Manila Mourns, Pauses to Reflect : Philippines: ‘Many of us came close to Judgment Day,’ a cleric reminds parishioners in posh Makati district.

When the dozens of youngsters gathered for the children’s sermon Sunday morning at the Church of the Holy Trinity, they found their mascot, a two-foot-high, stuffed church mouse named Matthew, with a torn-up letter in his lap.

“This was Matthew’s letter to Santa Claus,” explained the parish’s Canadian priest, Father Brian Allan, as the children crowded around. “Matthew had asked Santa for a toy gun.

“But last week Matthew got bombed. He got shot at. Not with toy guns, but with real ones. And Matthew saw a lot of people die.

“Now, Matthew doesn’t want a toy gun for Christmas anymore.”

It was a day of reckoning at the Church of the Holy Trinity, the Episcopal church in the exclusive Forbes Park subdivision of the Makati district, Manila’s financial and commercial hub. The posh area of office buildings, shops and luxury condominiums was besieged and under fire for most of last week as rebellious soldiers staged the worst-ever coup attempt against President Corazon Aquino.

Parishioners had seen death in their neighborhood. They’d seen bullets and light artillery shells smash through their living room windows and land near their beds. They’d seen rebel snipers commandeer their luxurious condominiums and take up positions on the high-rise balconies.

And when he turned to the children’s parents later in the Sunday Mass, Allan, who was holed up in his church through most of the ordeal, summed up the feelings of most of the foreigners and Filipinos in the pews.

“This week, many of us came very, very close to Judgment Day. . . ,” he said, “closer than any other year in our lives.”

So it was in much of this devout Christian nation Sunday. Christmas shoppers began flooding stores, and families began restocking their cupboards in Makati’s modern shopping centers. But Sunday was also a day of reflection, of mourning and of soul-searching, as the horrors and the lessons of a week that saw 83 Filipinos killed and hundreds wounded in Manila’s worst street fighting since World War II began to sink in.

President Aquino also committed her day to soothing wounds and easing pain.

She traveled by presidential helicopter to the province of Batangas, 50 miles south of Manila, to attend the funeral of a pro-government fighter pilot who crashed in his F-5 jet while strafing rebel positions at the height of the coup 10 days ago.

Seated beside the president at the ceremony, Evita Domingo Atienza, the widow of Maj. Danilo Atienza of the 6th Tactical Fighter Squadron, wept hysterically as her husband’s flag-draped coffin was blessed in a pavilion outside the provincial hall.

Rooftop anti-sniper teams searched the area for potential assassins, and commandos in black berets formed a ring of security as Aquino lavished praise on the 38-year-old pilot. Atienza crashed during his seventh strafing run on his third sortie of the day on Dec. 1. The cause of the crash is unknown.

“He is what we Filipinos would like to be,” Aquino told reporters later. “He showed greatness, and he was never concerned about himself.

“I assured the family of Maj. Atienza, like in my case, that they should believe they are not alone in this.”

And the president, herself widowed by a political killing, talked tough about the officers and soldiers who staged the bloody coup, vowing retribution.

“We have to make sure that justice is done, that those who are guilty will be meted the full penalty,” she said.

Such a task is likely to be a difficult one, and Aquino’s loyal military forces also spent the day taking a hard look inside their own ranks.

Armed forces spokesman Col. Juanito Rimando confirmed that the three officers the government believes led the coup--Lt. Col. Gregorio (Gringo) Honasan, Brig. Gen. Edgardo Abenina and Maj. Abraham Puruggunan--remain at large.

Puruggunan, who led the rebel force that took over the Makati district and held it for three days, apparently just strolled away unchallenged last Thursday when the rebels gave up and marched to their barracks.

It was Puruggunan who, just minutes before he slipped into the Makati crowd, declared on national television, “We have won some important victories.”

Acknowledging deep, lingering splits within every arm of the military, a top aide to Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos said: “There’s got to be reforms now. President Aquino must revamp her Cabinet. Heads must roll.

“And in the military, we have to go back to square one, or maybe one step behind that, and do some investigating on the extent of involvement, the depth of involvement.”

But, in Makati and other hard-hit Manila districts, the damage assessment was far more immediate.

Most of the victims of Manila’s bloodiest coup ever were not soldiers. They were civilians--a 60-year-old man blown to pieces by a grenade as he made his way to the post office to collect a $400 Christmas check from his daughter in America; a 6-year-old girl who was torn apart by shrapnel when a stray round landed in her squatter’s colony, and a young maid who was shot between the eyes by a sniper when she poked her head out the window of a posh Makati condominium.

Candles burned throughout the day Sunday at funeral parlors and churches where the coup victims lay. But there was one victim who best illustrated Father Allan’s children’s sermon on Sunday morning.

It was a teen-age boy who was shot and killed on a Makati street as he ran through the cross-fire to pick up the M-16 rifle of a fallen government soldier.

All the young man wanted, his friends said later, was a souvenir.