Philippine Armed Forces Chief Gen. Fidel Ramos said Saturday many of the 1,200 soldiers who participated in a bloody mutiny against the government were only following orders and had been tricked into joining the rebellion.
At least 25 people were killed and 275 wounded in the mutiny, which began before dawn Friday and finally fizzled Saturday with the surrender of several hundred rebel holdouts. Ramos said the situation in the Manila area was nearly under control.
The government said loyal troops had retaken all of Camp Aguinaldo, the national military headquarters in suburban Quezon City where the fiercest fighting occurred.
Government troops also were in control of the nearby government broadcast center, which was retaken Friday in a half-hour firefight.
Most of the casualties were civilians, including President Corazon Aquino`s only son, Benigno Aquino III, 27, who was seriously wounded when rebel soldiers ambushed his car.
The mutiny was led by renegade Col. Gregorio ”Gringo” Honasan, a hero of the ”people power revolution” that ousted former President Ferdinand Marcos and installed Aquino in office 18 months ago.
Honasan remained at large Saturday. Unconfirmed reports said he escaped by helicopter from a military camp shortly before government troops launched an attack on the rebels Friday afternoon.
A nationwide alert was issued for Honasan`s arrest and law enforcement authorities were authorized to shoot the colonel if he resisted, Ramos said.
”He is responsible for the death and destruction that you see around you,” Ramos told reporters at a chaotic impromptu news conference as he toured the battered military camp where rebel troops and government soldiers had a showdown late Friday.
”He`s a big liar. A great number of these (rebel) soldiers were misled and deceived by their officers, especially Col. Honasan, because he made it appear that they were coming to Manila to take part in an exercise.”
Honasan, a former aide and security chief for opposition Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, spearheaded the coup attempt with several hundred soldiers from Ft. Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija Province, 80 miles northeast of Manila. The fort is the largest troop-training facility in the Philippines and Honasan is commander of its Special Operations School, which prepares elite troops for airborne maneuvers, covert activities and combat exercises.
The coup began about 1 a.m. Friday when Honasan`s forces tried to storm the presidential palace, several television stations and two military camps in Manila.
At the same time, several hundred rebels occupied Camp Olivas, a Philippine constabulary base near San Fernando, 75 miles north of Manila. Early Saturday, the remaining holdouts walked out quietly after ”bidding goodbye and saying they were sorry,” a regional commander said by telephone. In Cebu City, the commander of paramilitary national police, who had supported the coup attempt, stepped down Saturday under orders from Ramos and released civilian authorities he had placed under house arrest. The rebels had seized control of the military base there Friday, as well as all radio stations on Cebu Island, which is 350 miles south of Manila. On Saturday, the freed provincial governor and city mayor led a pro-government demonstration in the metropolis, the nation`s second-largest.
In Manila, presidential security guards repulsed the attack on Malacanang Palace, but not without heavy casualties. Five members of the Presidential Security Guard were killed along with six civilians. Witnesses said the civilians were sprayed with automatic weapons fire when they rushed to an area near the palace and began shouting for the rebels to surrender.
Aquino`s son was shot about 2 a.m. as he returned home from his business in Makati, the financial district of Manila. A presidential spokesman said rebels apparently recognized ”Noynoy” Aquino and opened fire on his car and a backup security vehicle.
Three of Aquino`s companions were killed and a fourth was wounded seriously. Sources said the fourth man saved Aquino`s life by throwing himself on the president`s son.
Rebel troops initially succeeded in capturing several television stations. At one point, they knocked four of Manila`s five television channels off the air. But soldiers loyal to Aquino recaptured all four stations in fierce battles before the end of Friday.
The heaviest fighting came in and around Camp Aguinaldo, headquarters of the Philippine Armed Forces and scene of the four-day military uprising that brought Aquino to power in February, 1986.
Honasan and several hundred troops occupied the camp shortly after dawn Friday. They were let in without firing a shot by pro-Aquino soldiers who later said they wanted to ”avoid a bloody confrontation.”
Ramos launched a full-scale assault against the camp Friday after failing to persuade the rebels to surrender.
Honasan issued a statement from inside the camp saying his troops were neither ”leftists nor rightists nor loyalists” of Marcos.
He said they were dedicated soldiers who wanted Ramos to step down because he was politically motivated general and an ineffective commander.
Aquino, however, went on national television to brand Honasan and his followers as ”monsters and traitors.” She authorized an all-out assault on the rebels that led to the fiercest fighting in Manila since U.S. troops recaptured the city from the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II.
Low-flying bombers, helicopter gunships, armored personnel carriers, artillery and mortars were thrown into the attack, which lasted most of Friday afternoon.
Several of the hundreds of civilians who gathered outside the camps to watch the battle were killed or seriously wounded by errant mortar shells and automatic weapons.
Crowds outside the camps gaped, shrieked and applauded when a pair of World War II-era airplanes took turns making low bombing runs and firing rockets inside the camp.
From outside the camp, the rockets appeared to slam into the general headquarters building where Ramos and his deputy commanders have their offices. Minutes after a bombing run, the top floor of the three-story brick building was engulfed in flames.
But Ramos explained on his tour of the camp with reporters Saturday that the headquarters was set afire by rebels who doused one wing of the third floor with gasoline and set it off with grenades. He said three government soldiers were killed in the attack on the headquarters building. One of them burned to death, he said.
The rebellion effectively was crushed after government troops gained control of Camp Aguinaldo at dusk Friday. But small pockets of resistance held out overnight, and rebel soldiers still controlled the two camps in San Fernando and on Cebu Island.
The last significant resistance crumbled at dawn Saturday when an additional 77 rebels inside Camp Aguinaldo surrendered and the two military camps were returned to government control.
Six buses filled with surrendered rebels were spotted in Manila late Friday and early Saturday.
President Reagan, in a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Manila, condemned the rebellion as an ”attempted extra-constitutional action.”
”I wish to make clear America`s unqualified support for President Aquino,” Reagan said.
Several other Western governments issued similar statements of support.
At the Clark Air Base near Manila on Saturday, U.S. troops were restricted to base after three police officers were killed and three civilians wounded in an ambush a half mile from the garrison, officials said. All of the victims were Filipinos.
