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For the past 21 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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Trillanes, Gen. Lim, Former Vice President Guingona, churchmen, and journalists arrested in Makati coup try
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MANILA– Government SWAT teams raided a Five Star Hotel that was taken over by recusant soldiers and politicians in the Philippines’ business district of Makati, Thursday morning, and arrested a senator, a general, two Catholic bishops and some 17 mediamen.
The arrests on Lim and Trillanes and company were effected shortly after they declared that they were leaving the Manila Peninsula Hotel.
Trillanes and his group decided to end the standoff after government troops threw teargas at the hotel lobby and an armored personnel carrier rammed the entrance.
"We're going out for the sake of the safety of everybody, for your sake because we cannot live with our conscience if some of you get hurt or get killed in the crossfire," said Trillanes, addressing the media.
"If there's a loser here it's the Filipino nation because she's [Arroyo] still there," he added, noting that he was ready to face the consequences of his action.
Brigadier General Danilo Lim, who was with Trillanes, said this was not the end, calling the incident an “unfinished business.”
Guingona said, “In every crisis there is a solution and in this short crisis the solution is to save lives to prevent bloodshed.”
In a press conference, Trillanes tried to justify his action, saying: “I stand before you today to fulfill my role as a former soldier and now as a senator of this country. I am standing for the rights of the oppressed.”
On his group’s decision to leave the hotel, Trillanes blamed the administration’s “ruthlessness.”
“You have been witnesses to the kind of ruthlessness this administration has been giving to the people,” said Trillanes.
When asked what he was going to do after this, Trillanes said, “Like soldiers, we’re going to face this.”
As the teargas filled the lobby, members of the rebel group herded journalists to the meeting room where civil society groups and Arroyo critics had gathered. Reporters and the renegade soldiers made makeshift facemasks of the hotel tablecloths to protect themselves from the teargas. The hotel corridors were a mess, with lamps and tables overturned during the commotion.
Police Director Geary Barias of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) led the assault.
Earlier, police failed to serve the arrest warrant against Trillanes issued by Judge Oscar Pimentel of the Makati regional trial court. Pimentel has found Trillanes guilty of contempt of court. Trillanes had said that he would stay at the Manila Peninsula for “as long as necessary” after claiming that “nothing will happen” after the 3 p.m. deadline for their departure lapsed.
“What we did was not only our duty but our moral obligation,” said Trillanes said in justifying his latest act of defiance, adding, “It is our duty as religious individuals to do what is right.”
“Dumaan tayo sa tamang pamamaraan [We passed through the right processes]. Elected pero wala ring nangyari [We were elected but nothing happens]. They voted for me so that I can speak up for their rights and our advocacies,” said Trillanes, referring to his election as senator last May. He has been barred from participating in the Senate sessions because of the criminal cases that had been filed against him.
Earlier in the day, Barias left the Manila Peninsula without talking to Trillanes despite setting the 3 p.m. deadline. A rebel soldier in uniform said Barias was “causing too much trouble.”
Barias had ordered all guests to vacate the premises supposedly pending the results of negotiations between the government and Trillanes. “I am asking all guests of the hotel to leave so that we can do our jobs,” Barias said in a live interview earlier in the day.
Mariano Garchitorena, head of the Public Relations office of the Manila Peninsula, described the situation at the hotel as “calm” and said that if the order of the authorities was to vacate, they would follow it “like good citizens.”Garchitorena said they had around 400 guests but that he didn’t know how many had left before the pro-Trillanes forces blocked the exits.
Trillanes and other officers accused of leading the July 2003 rebellion walked out of their trial Thursday and marched through the streets of Makati calling for the ouster of Arroyo.
The soldiers, numbering around 30, were accompanied by armed guards as they broke down a door of the hotel, overwhelmed security guards and read out a statement against Arroyo with a full list of their demands.
Heavily-armed government troops quickly surrounded the hotel in Manila’s Makati financial district -- the same location of a failed 2003 coup against Arroyo allegedly led by many of the same soldiers.
The renegades urged Arroyo to resign and called on the military, a central power in this vast Southeast Asian island nation with the power to make and break its leaders, to turn against her.
People were going in and out of the Peninsula Hotel freely but a guest said he had been stopped by men with machine guns from going up to the second floor, where Brigadier General Danilo Lim, a co-accused, and others were said to be planning their next move.
The surprise events appeared to have been well orchestrated. A detailed website immediately appeared on the Internet, announcing Lim and Trillanes as the leaders of the uprising. The site called on the Filipino people to mass in the financial district.
All the soldiers were sporting red armbands with what appeared to be the letter "I" emblazoned in the middle of a white sun.
The walkout began shortly after the trial resumed after a brief recess. Lim, who himself is detained and facing coup d’etat charges following an alleged failed coup attempt in February 2006, was pulled away by several soldiers from the witness stand.
Trillanes and Lim said they were calling on the Filipinos to withdraw support from the government because the President has corrupted its institutions.
“We are joining the people… because the President continues to violate the Constitution of the Philippines repeatedly,” Lim told DZMM’s Teleradyo program, adding they were “calling for the removal of an illegitimate President.”
Trillanes, Lim and the other accused soldiers were joined by civilians, including a group of militant farmers and opposition figures led by former vice president Teofisto Guingona. It was not clear if the prisoners’ guards had joined the protest, but they marched along with the accused.
Reports culled by INQUIRER. net reporters and staff said police have barricaded the streets leading to Ayala Avenue and that two military trucks had crossed Paseo de Roxas. Four Army trucks and anti-riot police have barricaded the hotel, according to reports. (MNS) With reports from NYT.
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CHICAGO, Illinois (JGL) – Filipino American Michael Macalindong, the 24- year-old mortgage broker, accused of federal child pornography charges, was ordered to face trial on May 12, 2008 when he failed to make a plea at the status hearing of his case last Nov. 27th.
United States District Judge Ronald A. Guzman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago told Macalindong’s lawyer, Helen Kim, of the Federal defender’s program to tell her client to appear in court on May 12 to face trial.
Macalindong was not in court during the status hearing last Nov. 27th.
Attorney Kim refused to talk to this reporter when asked to comment on Judge Guzman’s order. Mark E. Schneider, assistant United States Attorney for the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago, said Macalindong could still make a plea on or before May 12. If convicted, Macalindong faces a statutory maximum penalty of a life in prison and possible restitution.
At the status hearing of the case last Oct. 19, Macalindong asked Judge Guzman to give him until Nov. 27, 2007 to decide during a status hearing if he would make a plea or face trial. The judge did not give him any extension.
Macalindong, who is held in detention cell at Ozaukee County Justice Center at Port Washington, Wisconsin, had earlier waived his appearance in court during a pre-trial hearing last Sept. 12, 2007 to avoid the two-hour long trip from his detention to the U.S. District Court in Chicago.
One of three children of a Filipino couple from Cavite in the Philippines, the US-born Macalindong is believed to be the first person to use the social networking site Facebook. com to prey on minors.
During his arraignment last June 12, Macalindong, a U.S. citizen, and resident of suburban Fox Lake, Lake County, Illinois, pleaded not guilty to taking sexually explicit photographs and video of at least three minors.
One of his victims was a 15-year-old boy from suburban Evanston, Illinois who authorities say Macalindong lured to his home for sex last year by using Facebook to pose as a teenage girl. The incident is believed to be the first accusation that the Facebook Web site was used to contact a minor for predatory reasons. Facebook is a social networking made up of 47,000 networks--individual schools, companies or regions- -that are each independent and closed to non-affiliated users.
Macalindong, posing as a girl, told the boy that for him to have sex with her, he had to first have sex with her male friend and have it taped so she could watch. Macalindong was the male friend in the ruse.
He is being held without bond, which Macalindong did not contest. If convicted, Macalindong faces a statutory maximum penalty of a life in prison and possible restitution. He "hijacked" the account of a female high school student in early 2006, investigators said.
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Arroyo assures Ranarios of efforts to save condemned OFW
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MANILA- -Kuwait ’s Court of Cassation (supreme court) upheld the death sentence meted by a lower court on Filipino domestic helper Marilou Ranario for killing her employer in January 2005.
Ranario’s lawyer, Abdul Majid Alkhhuraibet said the defense will file an appeal. President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo has assured the family of Marilou Ranario that she will do all she can to save the life of the Filipina worker, who is facing the death sentence in Kuwait for killing her employer.
Arroyo met with Marilou's mother, Encarnacion, in Cebu where the President attended the 17th general assembly of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines, Presidential Management Staff chief Cerge Remonde said.
Arroyo also hosted a Christmas party for Cebu media at the Malacańang sa Sugbu before flying to Naga City to check the condition of typhoon victims in evacuation centers.
“The President assured her [Encarnacion] of full government support,” Remonde said in a text message.
Remonde said Arroyo also told Encarnacion that the government is willing to pay blood money to the family of Marilou’s employer. He also quoted the President as saying the government will shoulder the expenses of the Ranario family should they decide to go to Kuwait.
Arroyo on Tuesday instructed Vice President Noli de Castro to fly to Kuwait for last-ditch efforts to save Marilou's life after her death sentence was affirmed by the Kuwaiti supreme court.
Ranario's lawyer said his client suffers from paranoia and claimed the employer had threatened to harm her before the attack. She had told the court that she did not mean to kill the woman. (MNS)
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