Philippines, 1987 — military coup attempt
Event Summary
The dataset records an attempted military coup in the Philippines on 18 April 1987, when rebel troops stormed army headquarters in Manila in a bid to free soldiers who had been detained in connection with the failed January 1987 seizure of the GMA broadcast complex against President Corazon Aquino. The action was part of the continuing turmoil within the Philippine armed forces, driven by Marcos loyalists and elements of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement who remained determined to bring down or reshape Aquino's government barely a year after the People Power Revolution. The attempt to storm the headquarters and release the imprisoned mutineers failed; the rebels were contained and later surrendered to loyalist government forces.
Aquino survived this, one of the string of coup attempts against her in 1986 and 1987, but the persistence of such plots kept her government under constant strain and steadily pushed it toward greater reliance on the loyal armed forces chief General Fidel Ramos, who repeatedly proved decisive in defeating the rebels and who would later succeed Aquino as president.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
84004181987
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Corazon Aquino's forces repelled the April 1987 storming of army headquarters and the rebels surrendered.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Wikipedia
Washington Post
LA Times
The Final Report of the Fact-Finding Commission - October 1990
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →