Protesters Storm Congress Over Coup Charges

A hundred leftwing protesters barged into the Philippine congress today to protest at the charging of five members of the House of Representatives for plotting to overthrow the presidency of Gloria Arroyo.

The five were among 16 implicated in a plot. Ms Arroyo declared a state of emergency on Friday after the military said it had foiled the alleged conspiracy.

The protesters, who were pushed back by police, claimed the arrests could be the start of a crackdown on political opposition.

Shouting "No to martial law" and displaying anti-Arroyo placards, the protesters ran past guards and entered the lobby, but other guards quickly shut the main door to the hall.

Virgilio Pablico, the head of the Philippine police legal department, said elements in the military and both left and right wing groups were involved in a plot to overthrow Ms Arroyo’s administration.

He said police had gathered testimony and "pieces of electronic paraphernalia containing the membership and tactical alliance of the two movements".

Two of the 16 - House of Representatives member Crispin Beltran and former senator Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan, a veteran of past coup attempts - are detained, while the rest remain at large.

The turmoil began last June when Ms Arroyo was accused of rigging the 2004 presidential election. A tape recording emerged of a conversation she had with a member of the election commission from which it was alleged that Ms Arroyo was putting pressure on the commissioner to fiddle the results in her favor.

She declared a state of emergency for a few days last year but diplomats say the current situation is much worse for her. Following the state of emergency declaration last week, police banned public protests, raided the office of a newspaper critical of the president and started arresting her known critics.

The authoritarian measures were widely condemned, with the former president Fidel Ramos describing them as "Marcosian", a reference to the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Ms Arroyo’s grip on the presidency was further shaken last night when more than 100 marines openly defied her rule by rallying around commanders wanting to withdraw from the chain of command.

The troops, backed by several thousand opposition and civil society figures who flocked to their Manila base, ended the mini-rebellion after five hours and agreed to respect their superiors.

Late last night hundreds of students opposed to Ms Arroyo began to gather at the University of the Philippines and the civilian leaders who had supported the marines, including former president and pro-democracy icon Corazon Aquino, were considering whether to join them.

"We don’t know if we should go to UP or just go home and wait to be arrested as we’re all pretty compromised now," one person who had been in the camp told the Guardian.

Attempts to impeach Ms Arroyo have failed because she controls congress through a network of patronage rather than party loyalty. She denies the charges that she rigged the election and they were never proved.