Magdalo 'mutineers' cook up coup...in the kitchen

Almost five years after a failed rebellion in Makati City, soldiers behind the Oakwood mutiny have cooked up another coup...literally. Instead of plotting to overthrow the government, two Magdalo soldiers have launched a sort of “coup de palette" through a cookbook entitled, “Pulutan: From the Soldiers’ Kitchen," a 133-page tasty manifesto of easy-to-cook but often chili-peppered recipes best downed with a mug of cold beer. Pulutan offers a wide array of beer-mate snacks dished out by their fellow mutineers, girlfriends, relatives, and even their amiable jail guards. Readers are warned, however, that some of the dishes may not be for the faint-hearted. While the cookbook has the Filipino pulutan staples of pork and chicken (and their innards), it also includes recipes made from field rats, woodworms, crickets (kamaro) and bull’s testicles which represent the various places in the Philippines where some of the soldiers had been assigned. Some of Pulutan’s dishes like the eponymous “Calamares ala Trillanes" (named after Magdalo leader-turned-Senator Antonio Trillanes IV), “Vampire’s Delight" (basically pig’s blood) and “French Kiss" (made from ox tongue) are bound to be more than a gastronomical delight with their tongue-in-cheek recipe. Pulutan authors, Ensigns Elmer Cruz and Emerson Rosales, are both graduates of the Philippine Military Academy Sanghaya Class of 2000. Both Cruz and Rosales, along with 52 other soldiers, were detained after the July 27, 2003 takeover of the Oakwood Premier Ayala Centre Hotel (now Ascott Hotel) where they called for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s resignation and exposed the alleged corrupt practices of her government, particularly in the military establishment. Cruz said it was instinct that pushed them to spend their time in jail creatively. Aside from banding together with one ideology, the soldiers also had a common thing for some light-hearted drinking and pulutan-cooking. With their limited communication lines to the outside world, the soldiers cleverly exchanged recipes during their court hearings. During one of the hearings, a Magdalo officer approached veteran journalist Ellen Tordesillas, who was then covering the event, and asked her to help the authors find a publisher and editor. Tordesillas received the recipes, passed around by the soldiers during the hearings, in the form of notes. Originally titled Drunkard’s Delight, the book has been spiced up and was co-edited by Tordesillas’ friend and fellow journalist Yvonne Chua. “A cookbook by detained military officers! It got me excited. Elmer and Emerson have been in detention for almost four years for their alleged involvement in what is commonly referred as the Oakwood mutiny," Tordesillas said in Pulutan’s introduction. After entering into a plea-bargaining agreement early April, the pair was released last December and has since been busy savoring their “success." “Since we were prohibited from drinking [while in prison], we just spent our time competing in cooking the best pulutan," Rosales said in Filipino during the public launching of the cookbook in Makati on Thursday. Published by Anvil, the book is a testament that adversity certainly cooks up a delicious opportunity. - Mark J. Ubalde, GMANews.TV