Die Welt

A coup against Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was foiled today when special police units stormed a hotel where army mutineers had taken refuge.

The mutineers demanded her resignation, but by the time the police stormed the hotel their leaders had already signalled their surrender.

Arroyo called a crisis meeting of her cabinet and placed the Presidential Guard on alert. Defence Minister Gilbert Teodoro said that he had ordered the arrest of the officers. Troops used an armoured vehicle to break through the hotel entrance and fired teargas inside the building. At least two people were injured. A police ultimatum to leave the hotel by 3pm (7am GMT) expired, although the mutineers surrendered anyway.

Thirty soldiers had escaped from a courtroom in the financial district of the capital Manila that morning in which some of them were being tried for a failed coup attempt in 2003. They were joined by more than a dozen military police officers who were supposed to be guarding them.

"The people have had enough" said a leader of the mutiny who - in spite of the charges against him - had been elected to the Senate in May. "We call on the people to join us". General Danilo Lim, one of his accomplices, read out a statement in which he announced his withdrawal of support from Arroyo’s party.

The government has been fighting allegations of corruption for several months. Accusations of electoral fraud were made after the last elections, but were never proved.