Siege of the Manila Hotel

After Marcos' overthrow and exile to Hawaii in February 1986, his supporters regularly held rallies demanding his restoration as president every Sunday at Manila's Luneta Park, which was next to the Manila Hotel, a luxury hotel that was a prominent gathering place for politicians, expatriates and other leading members of Philippine society. The rallies were often attended by prominent personalities associated with Marcos who had stayed behind in the Philippines, including Arturo Tolentino, Marcos' running mate in the 1986 snap presidential election on 7 February, whose disputed outcome precipitated the People Power Revolution on 22–25 February that ousted Marcos and installed his electoral rival, Corazon Aquino. The coup was launched whilst the Aquino government was grappling with several issues such as student unrest in Metro Manila, agrarian reform, rising tensions with the Armed Forces of the Philippines regarding negotiations with the CPP-NPA to end the communist insurgency and the supposed presence of left-wing officials in Aquino's cabinet, the drafting of a new constitution, and preparations for Aquino's state visit to the United States. On the morning of the coup, prominent Marcos loyalists at the InterContinental Manila invited American journalist Jack Anderson to their regular Sunday rally at the Luneta, promising a "scoop". ==Events==

Occupation of the hotel During the regular Marcos loyalist rally at the Luneta's Quirino Grandstand composed of Rafael Recto as Minister of Justice, Manuel Collantes as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Manuel Alba as Minister of Budget, Isidro Rodriguez Jr. as Minister of Local Government, and Juan Ponce Enrile as Minister of National Defense and concurrent Prime Minister. Tolentino also ordered Nicanor Yñiguez, the speaker of Marcos' dissolved rubber-stamp parliament, the Regular Batasang Pambansa, to convene the body and call for local elections. reduced the number of participants to a few hundred by daybreak. However, in August 1987, transcripts containing seven calls by Marcos to supporters at the Manila Hotel were released, appearing to show that Marcos extensively knew about the planned coup and directed events once it came. The conversations were recorded during the first 14 hours of the coup before the evacuation of all employees from the hotel and were transcribed by the hotel's telephone operator at the instruction of hotel officials. Among the details that were released was that Marcos had three men at the hotel directly monitoring the situation for him, and that he dissuaded his supporters from marching on Malacañang pending the arrival of reinforcements led by his close ally, former Lanao del Sur governor Ali Dimaporo. The conversations contributed to the government's view that the coup was a "pre-planned and premeditated conspiracy" to destabilize the Aquino government. Aquino was accompanied by Ramos in Cagayan de Oro when the coup broke out, forcing their return to Manila, while vice president Salvador Laurel was on an official visit to Spain. On 9 July, Aquino offered clemency to the participants in exchange for taking the “oath of loyalty to the Freedom Constitution.” ==Aftermath==

Damages to the hotel The three-day takeover of the 500-room Manila Hotel resulted in the facility sustaining its worst damage since the Battle of Manila in 1945. Its general manager Franz Schutzman estimated the damage at $500,000 and noted that the hotel lost five business days, two during the actual occupation and three to cleanup efforts. The doors of 26 rooms on the sixth floor were pried open, and all their towels, leather-bound folders and even the brass numbers on the doors were stolen. Other rooms and corridors occupied by the rebels were strewn with trash and leftover food and ransacked, as were the hotel's restaurant, pantry and bar. A dozen improvised explosives were discovered in the lobby. The hotel president, Feliciano Belmonte Jr., said $15,000 went missing from cash registers and four safety-deposit boxes were forced open. The involvement of Enrile and RAM in the coup was never properly investigated, which appeared to have encouraged them to launch subsequent plots against Aquino's government. The public, still reeling from the excesses of the Marcos regime, remained generally unaffected by the coup. ==See also==