MANILA, Philippines -- The Court of Appeals has stopped the Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) from ordering Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita to testify in a coup d’ etat case filed against 30 Magdalo soldiers who participated in the siege of the Oakwood Premier Hotel last July 2003.

In a 28-page decision, the appellate court quashed the subpoena duces tecum ad testificandum issued on April 14, 2009 by Makati RTC Branch 148 Presiding Judge Oscar Pimentel against Ermita.

The Court of Appeals said that Ermita “rightfully invoked executive privilege” in contesting the order since the information being sought from him by the respondents would endanger national security.

The detained Magdalo soldiers sought Ermita’s testimony in order to obtain information about the alleged atrocities, peace process in Mindanao and the irregularities in the government and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The rebel soldiers said that Ermita’s testimony would show the reason that forced them to “air their grievances” by seizing Oakwood.

However, the CA said the soldiers’ motive in the siege cannot be established through Ermita’s testimony. The appellate court said the Magdalo soldiers themselves truly know what they were thinking when they took over the posh hotel.

“Whatever information that may be elicited from the latter will not prove the private respondents’ real motive, for motive is intrinsic in nature, a state of mind which we cannot simply probe into as it is hidden in one’s conscience,” the CA said.

Ermita had refused to appear before the Makati RTC. He said that information sought to be obtained are covered by the executive privilege rule.

“It cannot be denied that the matters sought to be obtained from Executive Secretary Ermita involve, among others, communications and instructions relayed to him by the President. It deals with the negotiations and peace talks engaged in by Executive Secretary Ermita in Mindanao. With these in mind, it is not difficult to perceive the danger or impropriety of placing him on the witness stand considering that it would result in the disclosure of the President’s communications and instructions on the military and diplomatic matters, including the actual implementation thereof,” the CA said in its decision.

About 300 rebel soldiers led by a group of junior officers, among them then-Navy Lt. j.g. Antonio Trillanes IV, took over the Oakwood Premier Hotel last July 2003. They were immediately detained after they peacefully surrendered after several hours.

Trillanes would later win a Senate seat in the 2007 elections. He remains, however, detained at Camp Crame in Quezon City. He also faces a rebellion charge in connection with the November 2006 standoff at The Peninsula Manila hotel in Makati City.