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Month: November 2007

Hours, media grit in the Manila Pen

Following are two first-person-accounts of last Thursday’s standoff. One is mine and the other is by Azhel Hachero, Malaya’s reporter covering Makati.


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GMA news report on trip to Bicutan

By Ellen Tordesillas

Thursday morning, the Makati City hall premises were swarming with military personnel. Aside from the usual security escorts of the Magdalo officers, there were those from Camp Capinpin in Tanay who brought down Brig. Gen. Danny Lim, who was to testify on the agreement forged between Malacañang’s representatives and the Oakwood mutineers in July 2003.

Released

Thank you all for your concern.

I was released 10:30 p.m. with Malaya Makati reporter Azchel Hachero, my blog trainee Jerome Layug, and more than 20 other journalists who were brought to Camp Bagong Diwa to be processed.

Some were finger-printed and told to undergo drug test. Our lawyers were not allowed to enter the camp. It’s a good thing the Abs-cBN assisted us. We were told to just give nothing more than our name and information on our ID.

Treating us like common criminals was simply condemnable.

Soldiers, civilians rounded up

Authorities have rounded up the remaining Magdalo soldiers involved in the six-hour standoff and herded them to one side of the Manila Peninsula Hotel lobby.

The soldiers were ordered to strip to their shorts and lie face down; their hands were bound behind their backs.

Two Magdalo soldiers–Armand Pontejos and Francisco Bose–were reported missing.

Authorities have banned journalists from taking footage inside the hotel.

Trillanes, Lim to leave hotel

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim have decided to pull out of the Manila Peninsula Hotel after troops stormed the Makati-based hotel at 5 p.m., lobbing tear gas canisters and ramming an armored personnel carrier into the hotel lobby.

Trillanes and Lim, who proceeded to the hotel after walking out of this morning’s court hearing on the “Oakwood Mutiny,” said they wanted to avoid bloodshed.

“You have been witnesses and victims of the kind of ruthlessness that this administration has been giving to the people,” Trillanes told a press conference. “We’re going out for the sake of the safety of everybody. We cannot live with our conscience if some of you would get killed or hurt in the crossfire.”

The Oakwood Agreement

Here are the details of the Oakwood Agreement posted on Sundalo:

The following are the terms of the Oakwood Agreement, which was approved by the so-called Magdalo soldiers and the government represented by Gen. Roy Cimatu (Ret.):

  • Only the five (5) leaders named will suffer the consequences of the actions of the whole group at Oakwood. The five (5) are: Cpt Gary Alejano PN(M), Cpt Gerardo Gambala PA, Cpt Milo Maestrecampo PA, LTSG James Layug PN and LTSG Antonio Trillanes IV. All the rest shall only be admonished under the provisions of AW 105.
  • There will be an independent investigation on the status of RSBS.
  • There will be an independent investigation on the selling of arms and ammunition to the enemies of the state.
  • There will be an independent investigation on the bombings in Davao and other areas in Mindanao.
  • There will be an independent investigation on the extent of corruption in the AFP.