Arroyo told Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) finance ministers that military adventurism remained a problem because soldiers who launched a spate of deadly coup attempts a generation earlier had gotten away with murder.

"Because laws have been violated and the constitution has been threatened, we can assure due process but not unwarranted leniency," Arroyo told an ASEAN finance ministers meeting in Manila.

"The resurgence of mutinies can be traced in part to a reluctance to enforce justice against military adventurism," she added.

On July 27, more than 300 junior military officers and soldiers took over part of Manila's Makati financial district. They had called on Arroyo and top defense officials to step down over alleged corruption in the military.

But the uprising was peacefully quelled more than 20 hours later after it failed to gain public sympathy.

Military vice chief of staff Lieutenant General Rodolfo Garcia on Wednesday said the armed forces inspector general has recommended that 45 of the officers face court martial for mutiny and sedition.

He did not identify them, but said they faced as much as life imprisonment and dismissal from service if found guilty.

"That is the initial recommendation," of inspector general Librado Ladia, Garcia said.

Armed forces chief General Narciso Abaya is expected to approve the recommendation.

"The recommendation did not depend on the statements (of the renegades) alone, but on (television) footage, eyewitness accounts and other pieces of evidence," Garcia said.

Five of the coup leaders have been detained at military intelligence headquarters and have not been allowed to appear before public hearings on the foiled putsch.

A "state of rebellion" remains in effect in the Philippines after Arroyo at the weekend said there appeared to be "residual threats" from civilian and military backers of the rebel soldiers.

In the 1980s, the government of Corazon Aquino foiled seven military rebellions that left hundreds dead, many of them civilians.

Arroyo's government has accused one of the leaders of the 1980s coup attempts, opposition Senator Gregorio Honasan, of leading the latest mutiny. The former Army colonel denies the charge and has gone in hiding.

Fidel Ramos, a former general who succeeded Aquino as president, bought a decade of relative peace by striking a peace settlement with military rebels who won blanket amnesty in 1995.

In 2001 another military-backed popular revolt unseated the democratically elected president Joseph Estrada in favor of Arroyo, the elected vice president. Estrada has been detained and is on trial for corruption.

"We have learned our lessons and we will not allow the duly constituted political authority to be held hostage by a few men-at-arms," Arroyo said.

"Civilian authority will never be forced to act upon any grievances to the end of a gun, especially those that are already being acted upon."

She assured the officials from ASEAN members Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam that "business continues as usual" despite the failed rebellion.

"We are consolidating our position rapidly," she said.

With criminal charges lodged and an independent inquiry looking into the root causes of military restiveness, "it is fitting that the din of recriminations pipe down and give way to sobriety and prudence," she added.

The message was apparently directed at Congress, which has been insisting that the military allow the detained leaders of the mutiny to testify at parallel congressional public hearings.

The ASEAN meeting is being held at a hotel a block away from the site of the Makati siege.

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