Philippine Supreme Court Questions 'State of Rebellion'

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, August 13, 2003

Philippine Supreme Court Questions 'State of Rebellion'

The Philippine Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the government to justify its declaration of state of rebellion at the height of a failed mutiny on July 27 in a financial district here.

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The Philippine Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the government to justify its declaration of state of rebellion at the height of a failed mutiny on July 27 in a financial district here.

On its resolution, the high court wanted all concerned partiesto produce within 10 days their comment on several petitions against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's move to declare the state of rebellion.

The parties include Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo,Secretaries Simeon Datumanong of Justice, Angelo Reyes of Defense,Jose Lina of Interior and Local Government, Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Narciso Abaya, Philippine National Police chief Director General Hermogenes Ebdane and National Bureau of Investigation Director Reynaldo Wycoco.

The court resolved to consolidate the cases filed by the Social Justice Society, several members of the House of Representatives and Senator Aquilino Pimentel despite the lifting of the state ofrebellion on Monday.

All the petitioners asked the court to nullify a presidential proclamation declaring state of rebellion, and a general order directing the military and the police to suppress rebellion.The petitioners also argued that President Arroyo arrogated powers unto herself when she declared a state of rebellion without any Constitutional basis.

"Proclamation of a supposed state of rebellion is not aharmless constitutional anomaly, but one which confuses, confounds and misleads," one of the petitions read, adding that overzealous public officers, acting pursuant to such proclamation or generalorder, are liable to violate the constitutional rights of privatecitizens.

Earlier, the Supreme Court denied on a technicality similarpetitions by some civilian groups.

Arroyo announced the state of rebellion several hours aftersome 300 mutineers sieged an upper-end condominium in the financial district, and demanded the resignation of the president and several of her cabinet members. The uprising was ended peacefully before the end of the day.

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