...officers of the Philippine armed forces seized a shopping and residential complex in the fashionable Makati district. Their act not only spotlighted the soldiers' grievances against the regime of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but it focused attention on how badly the sense of irony fails today's leaders, news media, and, apparently, those of us who abet and tolerate those failures.

The 20-hour standoff brought an outpouring of endorsements for the loyalists. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer expressed his nation's support for the "democratically elected government of the president of the Philippines".

That declaration must've come as quite a shock to Joseph Estrada, winner of the Philippines' most recent presidential election, in his prison cell, particularly given Australia's previous reticence regarding Estrada's two-and-a-half-year confinement.

Gary LaMoshi Asia Times Jul 29, 2003