THE COMICAL 1986 MANILA HOTEL ‘OCCUPATION’ by Philip Lustre Ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos did not leave Malacanang to retire in Hawaii. For him, it was a temporary retreat. His ultimate aim was to regain power by destabilizing the fledgling Cory Aquino government. Banking on the support of a band of loyalists, derided as “Marcos abandonados,” Marcos had resorted to a destabilization campaign geared to flush Cory Aquino and her supporters out of Malacanang. For her part, Cory Aquino, upon assuming the presidency, dismantled the martial law apparatus in the country. She declared a revolutionary government, terminated the 1973 Constitution, which Marcos used to prop up his dictatorial government, and adopted the “Freedom Constitution,” which ruled the country until the adoption of the 1987 Constitution, and abolished the rubber stamp Batasang Pambansa. She named prominent opposition leaders either as Cabinet members or heads of major state offices. She replaced tens of thousands of local officials with officers-in-charge. Cory Aquino retired overstaying generals and promptly ruled that generals, upon reaching their mandatory retirement age, would have to leave without any extension. She released more than 500 political prisoners in fulfillment of her campaign promise. The political prisoners included Jose Ma. Sison, former chair of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines, Bernabe Buscayno, former head of the New People Army, CPP’s military arm, and Horacio Morales and Edicio dela Torre, leaders of the National Democratic Front (NDF), CPP’s political arm. She formed the commission that drafted the constitution, which the people approved in a plebiscite on Feb. 7, 1987. She took major steps to recover the ill-gotten wealth, which the Marcoses stashed here and abroad. All the while, Marcos, in his home in Hawaii, was promptly monitoring the developments in the country and busily plotting moves to trigger his return to power. Unbeknownst to many Filipinos, Marcos, despite his failing health, never lost his lust for power. He knew that the Cory Aquino government stood on shaky ground and that a mere push or kick would cause its collapse. The first challenge to the fledgling Aquino government took place on July 6, 1986, when the Marcos loyalist forces, who were staging a noisy protest demonstration at the Luneta Grandstand, rushed to the nearby Manila Hotel and occupied it. By 4 pm, Brig. Gen. Jose Ma. Zumel, a Marcos loyalist general and younger brother of then CPP central committee member Antonio Zumel, a former journalist, told the stunned hotel managers they were taking over the historic hotel to declare a “new government.” Some 400 soldiers in full battle gear and reputedly part of the Marcos loyalist bloc in the Armed Forces and 3,000 civilian supporters immediately joined the Manila Hotel siege, which took place on a Saturday. Arturo Tolentino, a former senator and Marcos running mate in the Feb. 7, 1986 “snap” presidential elections, took his oath of office as “acting president” because Marcos was still an exile. Hermogenes Concepcion, one of the Supreme Court justices, whom Cory Aquino did not reappoint, “administered” his “oath of office” in a ceremony that was attended by rabid Marcos loyalist elements. Before his “oath taking,” Tolentino read a purported letter from Marcos, which said: “I hereby order that, in view of the inadvertent and unavoidable absence from the Philippines, I authorize Senator Arturo Tolentino to be the legitimate head of government until such time that I return to the Philippines.” Tolentino went to name his Cabinet, which included Manuel Alba, Rafael Recto, Manuel Collantes, Isidro Rodriguez, and – of all people – Juan Ponce Enrile as “concurrent prime minister and defense minister.” Tolentino also “ordered” the “reconvening” of the abolished Batasang Pambansa “to call for local elections by end-1986.” Wags said his “oathtaking” and “announcement” of his “Cabinet” simply gave away the identities of the remaining Marcos loyalist forces. Certain military generals, who were unceremoniously retired when the Aquino government took over, attended what wags had described as a “reunion” of the Marcos loyalists. They were to recall the past, relive old memories, and feel again the power they once enjoyed, a wag commented sarcastically. Zumel, Propero Olivas (whose proposed appointment as PC-INP chief was rejected by Cory because of suspicion that he was part of the cover-up in the 1983 assassination of husband, Benigno Jr.), Antonio Palafox, Tomas Dumpit, Brillante Ochoco, Jaime Echevarria were among those who attended. Cols. Dictador Alqueza, Rolando de Guzman, Rey Cabauatan, Jose Mendoza, and several others below their ranks also attended. Local leaders like Joseph Estrada, Couple Isidro and Adelina Rodriguez, Vicente Magsaysay, and several lesser mortals went to the Manila Hotel. After his “oathtaking,” Turing Tolentino received overseas calls from Marcos, who congratulated him for “taking over the reins of government for him” and ordered to use the Manila Hotel as a base of their operations. Without the two leaders’ knowledge, some hotel staff, upon orders of their superiors, quietly taped their conversations and gave cassettes of their recorded conversations to the AFP intelligence people. Marcos asked the loyalist forces to draft a letter asking them to tell US President Ronald Reagan that they wanted him back in the Philippines. It did not materialize. The Manila Hotel siege happened when Cory Aquno, AFP chief of staff Gen. Fidel Ramos and PC-INP chief Major Gen. Renato de Villa were all in Cagayan de Oro City to visit the military camps in Mindanao. At that time, Cory Aquino was marshaling support from the military establishment, which seemed initially indifferent to her sudden rise to power and assumption of the presidency. The coincidence was planned so that the central government could not act on the first ever military putsch against the Cory government. The Marcos loyalist forces anticipated that with the Manila Hotel takeover, troop movements would happen in various parts of the country, culminating in a display of their own people power to restore the Marcos presidency. It was their grandiose plan. But nobody could explain or question the simplicity of their assumptions, which banked on a series of noisy loyalist protest demonstrations as the single trigger mechanism for a Marcos restoration. Except for some 400 soldiers and police personnel, who left Camp Olivas to join the Marcos loyalists in the Manila Hotel takeover, no other troop movements took place, leaving the loyalist leaders clueless about the failure of their purported military allies to show up on the day of reckoning. In brief, the people they trusted to materialize on the onset of the Manila Hotel siege did not arrive after receiving the reported millions of pesos of slash fund from Marcos and his supporters. The Manila Hotel siege was notorious for its tragicomedic texture. Enrile, who was earlier named as prime minister and defense minister of the Marcos loyalist government, flatly rejected the job offer and held a press conference to declare that he was not looking for another job. “I declined the Tolentino Cabinet offer... We have only one government in the Philippines and that’s the government of Cory Aquino. I am not looking for any job. There is no need to panic,” Enrile said. A little later, President Cory Aquino issued the statement that she would not allow this incident to happen, prompting her civilian supporters to warn they would also march to Manila Hotel in a display of people power to counter the Marcos loyalists. Mrs. Aquino knew this could escalate the standoff and told her supporters it was not the occasion for people power. Meanwhile, pro-Aquino military leaders devised ways to flush out the Marcos loyalist forces inside the posh hotel. This pushed Turing Tolentino to have a change of heart. Turing Tolentino, a pragmatic politician reared in the rambunctious premarital law politics, knew he would suffer the consequences if he would push his luck too far. A criminal case of sedition could be in the offing. Hence, Tolentino softened his stance and washed his hands to avoid being caught in a dilemma. He held a press conference to say that he took his “oath” because that was what many people wanted him to do it. It was a public clamor. But this was not without escape clause that drew cynical comments from observers: “We do not want the restoration of a constitutional government by violence or force. That is farthest from our thoughts.” The cynicism gave way to laughter, when the Hawaii-based Marcos, in a hookup interview with local radio networks, likewise washed his hands and said: “I have nothing to with that at all. The letter authorizing Tolentino to take over leadership was written a long time ago, just after I left the country.” When he felt that the Manila Hotel siege would collapse and the Aquino government would launch a military solution to flush them out of the five-star hotel, Tolentino was among the first to flee. From the upper floors, which were occupied by the loyalist elements, Tolentino took the fire exit to escape to a waiting car with tinted glasses. Witnesses said Tolentino, in a great hurry to escape, looked like Tarzan as he took and held on the stairs of the fire escape. After the incident, Tolentino distanced himself from the Marcos loyalist camp, although he did not give up his claim to the presidency. He only surrendered his illusion after the Filipino people overwhelmingly ratified the 1987 Constitution in the Feb. 7, 1987 plebiscite. In giving up his claim, Tolentino said his claim to the presidency was anchored on the provisions of the 1973 Constitution. Hence, the ratification of the 1987 Constitution had made his claim moot and academic. This was not the end. A melodramatic twist happened, when the sobbing daughter of Brig. Gen. Antonio Palafox, the Marcos loyalist general responsible for the destruction of Radio Veritas transmitter during the EDSA Revolution, took to the radio to make a last-minute appeal for his father to surrender. He was said to have softened after hearing his crying daughter. After a series of negotiations and upon seeing that they were losers in that siege, the Marcos loyalist forces quietly gave up, but not without another controversy. Their surrender unmasked the Marcos loyalist elements in the military establishment. The soldiers involved in the siege comprised a battalion-sized group composed of members of the 225th PC Company, former members of the defunct Presidential Security Command and foot soldiers in full battle gear of Guardian Brotherhood, a military fraternity. Upon interrogation, the participating soldiers claimed they went to participate in the Manila Hotel takeover after their leaders told them to participate in an uprising led by Enrile and Ramos. That was the only time they felt they were misled. Enrile took a lenient attitude on them and punished them with 30 pushups, drawing cynical remarks from the public. “Thirty pushups for joining a coup?” a newspaper columnist said. “This is a joke, a bad, bad joke.” The comical Manila Hotel siege was perceived as a dress rehearsal for future military coups, which putchist elements pursued to bring down the Aquino government. Greg Honasan, RAM leader at that time, was seen riding in a helicopter that circled the Marcos loyalists, who massed in front of the Manila Hotel. It was ironic that the Marcos loyalists were asking Enrile, who caused the downfall of Marcos, to lead the restored Marcos presidency. But future events showed they indeed formed some tactical coalition that eventually ended in total failure, if not disaster.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 10:44:12 +0000
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