2 Magdalo officers found guilty of coup

MANILA, Philippines—Two former Army officers who took part in the failed 2003 Oakwood mutiny were sentenced Friday to long prison terms after both spurned President Aquino’s offer of pardon, officials said.

Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 148 Judge Andres Soriano found ex-Army First Lieutenants Lawrence San Juan and Rex Bolo guilty of the crime of coup d’état and ordered both to serve a maximum of 12 years in jail.

“The judge found them guilty as participants of the coup, not as coup leaders, which is meted a lower penalty,” court official Maria Rhodora Peralta said.

In his 17-page decision, Soriano sentenced the two to imprisonment of “six years and one day of prision mayor as minimum, to 12 years of reclusion temporal as maximum.”

Shaking hands

San Juan and Bolo declined to comment on their conviction, but remained stoic as the decision was being read. The two were even seen shaking hands with the state prosecutors after the conviction was handed down.

The two were among several hundred “Magdalo” soldiers who seized the Oakwood serviced apartments in Makati City in 2003 in a failed bid by a group of junior officers to force Aquino’s predecessor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to resign over alleged corruption.

Arroyo crushed the mutiny, the first of three mounted against her during the nearly 10 years she spent in power, and later pardoned some of the participants.

She is now detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City while on trial for allegedly plundering the funds of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) during her years in office from 2001 to 2010.

Aquino, who came to power in 2010 after promising to fight corruption, granted amnesty that same year to all “Magdalo” officers and soldiers who had risen up against Arroyo.

However, San Juan and Bolo, on trial at the time, both rejected the new President’s offer and chose to have their names cleared through the civilian court, military spokesman Col. Arnulfo Burgos said.

No to amnesty

“They were both offered (amnesty), but they refused it,” Burgos said, adding that they were the only ones to reject the pardon.

Both men had been expelled from military service, like the officers who joined the revolts and later accepted the amnesty offer, said Burgos.

The lawyer of San Juan and Bolo, however, noted that the terms of the amnesty disallowed those who availed of it from returning to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

“San Juan and Bolo wanted to return to military service,” their lawyer Crystal Tenorio explained.

Among those pardoned and freed from prison during Aquino’s amnesty was former naval officer Antonio Trillanes, who had won a Senate seat in 2007 while campaigning from his military prison cell. Trillanes is now a close political ally of the President.

Tenorio said her clients would appeal their conviction with the Court of Appeals next week, and will file anew a motion to post bail.

Army custody

Until then, San Juan and Bolo will be under the custody of the Philippine Army, Tenorio said.

“They (San Juan and Bolo) still want to serve the country, so we will fight this out,” she said.

On July 27, 2003, then Navy Lieutenant Trillanes led more than 300 soldiers in laying siege to the Oakwood apartments in Makati City to dramatize their grievances against alleged corruption in the military under the administration of then President Arroyo. After a stand-off of more than 20 hours, the “Magdalo” soldiers eventually surrendered.

Tenorio insisted that the elements of crime for coup d’état was not present, since the soldiers took over a hotel and not a government installation.

But lead state prosecutor Richard Anthony Fadulla said: “For as long as the attack is directed on duly constituted authorities, then it would fall under the definition of what coup d’état is.”—With a report from Jaymee T. Gamil