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A former chief of the Philippine Air Transport Office seized a control tower at Manila's international airport last weekend, a curious act of civil disobedience that had a tragic, if predictable, ending. Panfilo Villaruel, 62, and an armed companion, navy reserve officer Ricardo Gatchalian, both strapped with explosives, burst into the tower with the intention of diverting international flights away from the country. As a three-hour standoff with police was ending shortly before 3 a.m. on Saturday, Villaruel used his cell phone to send out a last distress call, which was broadcast by several Manila radio stations: "My friend, we are being murdered here, my friend. I surrender, I surrender." But soldiers took the tower and, after a gunfight, shot to death Villaruel, a retired navy lieutenant, and his accomplice.

Villaruel said he was protesting rampant corruption and a government decision to derail a program he initiated when he was the country's Air Transport Office chief in the early 1990s. His rash act was due to "a personal problem," said airport-security chief Angel Atututbo. But in a country ever-primed for coup attempts—last July, about 350 soldiers took over an upscale apartment-and-hotel complex in Manila for 19 hours—the incident triggered a lethal response, as well as panic. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo appeared on TV at 6:20 a.m. to reassure the public that her administration was intact. "The nature and course and magnitude of the incident shows that this is not an attempt over the government," Arroyo said.

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The siege capped a turbulent few weeks, even by Philippine standards. On Oct. 23, a group of congressmen unexpectedly launched a drive to impeach Hilario Davide, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, on the grounds that he spent too much money renovating court properties, buying vehicles for his staff and ordering court curtains that cost $100,000. Davide is disliked by Arroyo's rivals because his court legitimized her accession to office after the People Power demonstration of 2001, which dislodged former President Joseph Estrada. Arroyo was then caught off guard as several members of her own political party joined the anti-Davide campaign. And when the Supreme Court issued an injunction saying the impeachment was illegal on technical grounds, it forced a mini-constitutional crisis. Members of the House of Representatives said the court was impugning its right to impeach high officials.

The public saw the fracas as an escalation of the Philippines' often bruising style of politics, which is getting even rougher in advance of May presidential elections. "It's a war of annihilation," says Foreign Secretary Blas Ople. That's politics, but in the Philippine context, there's the persistent worry that someone will yet try to take over the presidency by undemocratic means. Arroyo says she has given the nation's police chief standing orders to "thwart any destabilization attempt even before it starts." The incident at the airport may prove to be another harbinger of a tumultuous campaign season.

• Anthony Spaeth | Manila
• A lethal showdown at Manila's airport caps a week of turbulence