The United States today said that it was satisfied with the way President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo handled the mutiny staged by a group of young officers and soldiers in Makati City over the weekend.

In his daily briefing in Washington, D.C., Richard Boucher, spokesman of the Department of State, said the US was pleased that the Makati siege ended peacefully and without any loss of life.

Boucher said Washington has noted the announcement of President Macapagal-Arroyo to conduct investigations on the circumstances that led to the mutiny and the allegations of corruption aired by the dissident troops.

"She has promised to look into them. I think we’ll leave that to her. And we’ve supported the way she handled the crisis," Boucher said.

Boucher also reiterated an earlier assurance of US Ambassador to Manila Francis Ricciardone that the US is fully behind the government of President Macapagal-Arroyo.

"No one should be under any doubt that we support the legitimate civilian government of President Arroyo," Boucher said.

In a press conference during the height of the Makati standoff last Sunday, Ambassador Ricciardone also assured the President and the Armed Forces of the Philippines that the US was behind their efforts in resolving the crisis "in appropriate and lawful ways."

Ricciardone said that while President George W. Bush has been informed of the mutiny, the US government did not see the situation as a threat to the government of the Philippines and to Philippine democracy.

The US envoy also brushed aside speculations that the visit here of President Bush in October would be postponed because of recent developments in the Philippines.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye said today that the state of rebellion declared by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to quell last Sunday’s mutiny by junior military officers will stay in effect until such time as loose ends in connection with the incident have been tied up.

In a press briefing today, Bunye said he has yet to receive instructions from the President on the lifting of the declaration.

Reacting to queries on the duration of the declaration, Bunye said it is becoming clear that there are some civilian elements whose participation took place before, during and probably a little after the July 27 uprising.

"There are many circumstances that point to wide support from outside groups, like the presence of supplies which are not normally available to the regular officers and men of the Armed Forces, the possible use of private funding to be able to check into the Oakwood apartelle even before the actual incident, the types of materials which indicate that these were prepared and fabricated or put together way in advance and in cooperation with some outside groups," he said.

Saying it does not wish to point fingers at any particular group, Bunye said the government is looking at all angles including physical evidence that would tend to show that the mutineers could not have launched this without any outside help.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today created an independent commission led by a former Supreme Court justice to look into the roots of the Makati mutiny and the provocations that inspire it.

The President said during a meeting with soldiers at the Camp Aguinaldo grandstand that retired Associate Justice Florentino Feliciano has agreed to chair the commission.

She added that retired Associate Justice Minerva Gonzaga Reyes and Professor Carolina Hernandez also agreed to be members of the probe body.

The President said the destabilization try in Makati City on Sunday "can only be the handiwork of the most desperate groups that have completely lost their moral compass."

"We must not only bring them to justice. We must awaken them to the modern world in which the use of force to attain political ends is no longer an accepted model of change, especially in open democratic societies such as ours," she said.

In the aftermath of the Makati crisis, the President said the government’s priority is to build unity and reconciliation with justice.

"We shall take all means to repair the division caused by the incident by rectifying the grievances that caused it, and by bringing its plotters to justice," she said.

Justice Feliciano, 75, was appointed as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on August 1986.

He obtained his bachelor of laws from the University of the Philippines, magna cum laude, in 1952. He also obtained the degree of Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, also from the state university.

He earned his Master of Laws degree in 1953 and his Doctor of Juridical Science (JSD) in 1955 from Yale University.

He was a former managing partner of the Sycip, Salazar, Feliciano and Hernandez Law Office and member of various academic and professional organizations here and abroad. He sat in various international commercial arbitration boards and has contributed pieces to local and international publications.

Justice Gonzaga-Reyes was an Associate Justice at the Court of Appeals (CA) for 13 years and chairman of the Third Division of the Appellate Court before she joined the Supreme Court on January 1999.

Right after graduating magna cum laude and class valedictorian at the UP College of Law, she started her government career at the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 1954. She assumed various positions and became Assistant Chief State Counsel from 1968 to 1983.

She also represented the country in several peace and trade-related and foreign loan negotiations abroad, notable of which were the RP-MNLF Talks on the Tripoli Agreement of 1977, the RP-US Trade and Investment Treaty and the RP-Japan Treaty on Amity, Commerce and Navigation.

She also served as consultant at the Advisory and Administrative Support Office, RP Panel, of the RP-US Military Bases Agreement Joint Committee and president of the Philippine Women Judges Association.

Professor Hernandez is currently a professor of political science at UP and the holder of its Carlos P. Romulo Professorial Chair in International Relations.

She is founder and president of the Institute for Strategic and Development Studies, an independent, non-profit think-tank on foreign policy, domestic politics, and security concerns and development issues.

In 1989-1990, she served as a member of the Commission that investigated the failed coup of 1989, a body appointed by former President Corazon Aquino that produced the Final Report that is seen as a critically important document in the country’s march to re-democratization.

Dr. Hernandez is widely published in international, regional and Philippine academic journals in the fields of regional security and foreign relations, military in politics, democracy and development, and Philippine domestic politics and foreign policy.

She holds a B.S. in Foreign Service, cum laude, from UP, and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Karachi where she finished first in her class.