MANILA, Philippines – Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes told a Makati court yesterday President Arroyo asked him to resign as secretary of national defense after the Oakwood mutiny in July 2003.
Testifying at the trial of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and other renegade soldiers, the former defense secretary and Armed Forces chief said he was eventually named secretary of the interior and local government after a month.
In staging the mutiny, Trillanes, a former Navy officer, and 300 other junior military officers asked for the head of Reyes because of alleged corruption in the military.
Lawyer Ernesto Francisco Jr., representing eight of the accused Magdalo soldiers, said the testimony of Reyes proves that soldiers who joined the Oakwood mutiny had legitimate grievances.
“The President would not have asked (Reyes) to resign if there was no justification for that,” he told The STAR.
Francisco said Reyes also admitted that the military offensives in the Liguasan marsh in Central Mindanao and the Buliok complex in Cotabato province were launched partly to pave the way for an oil exploration project.
“His testimony confirmed that irregularities aired by the soldiers were true,” he said.
On the other hand, Assistant Chief State Prosecutor Richard Anthony Fadullon said the transfer of Reyes to another post does not prove that the grievances of the soldiers were true.
“The fact that he did does not mean that he was made to resign by the President,” he said. “It was like buying peace for the sake of the greater good.”
Fadullon noted the exact words of Reyes were: “I was the only casualty of the Oakwood incident when I was being asked to transfer to DILG.”
The prosecution did not cross-examine Reyes because they did not see a need to do so insofar as relevance to whether a coup was launched, he added.
Reyes was the fourth top government official to testify in the case after former AFP chiefs Roy Cimatu, Narciso Abaya and Sen. Rodolfo Biazon.
The defense is expected to present several more witness, including newsmen, in the next hearings before it rests its case.
The trial was presided over by Judge Oscar Pimentel of the Makati Regional Trial Court. – Michael Punongbayan