The coup was the sixth such attempt to overthrow Aquino and marked her final break with RAM, whose mutiny against the regime of President Ferdinand Marcos helped propel her into office.

It was also the deadliest instance of infighting within the Philippine military at the time until it was surpassed by a subsequent coup attempt in 1989, which was also launched by Honasan and RAM to overthrow Aquino.

The Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) was a group of dissident soldiers and officers of the AFP that was formed in the latter years of the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos.

[2][3] This eventually snowballed into the People Power Revolution which ended the Marcos dictatorship and forced him into exile,[3][4] replacing him with his electoral rival, Corazon Aquino.

However, RAM's relations with the new president gradually deteriorated, and the group was subsequently implicated in several coup attempts against her, one of which, the God Save the Queen Plot in November 1986, led to Enrile's dismissal as defense minister by Aquino, and the transfer of Honasan to Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, 200 kilometers north of Manila.

[7] Honasan then held back his students' graduation from his courses as part of his efforts to train and indoctrinate them for the coup, which was not noticed by his superior officers for several months.

Ramos alerted the Philippine Army's 5th Division to verify the report, and ordered Brigadier General Ramon Montaño, his deputy chief of staff for operations, to accompany him to Fort Magsaysay early on August 28, 1987 to check the situation themselves.

Moreover, the situation coincided with rising discontent within the overall ranks of the AFP for the Aquino government, with a survey taken three months before the coup showing that 34% of officers agreed that "an incompetent civilian leader could justly be ousted by military men", versus 33% who disagreed.

[7] Government attempts to intercept the rebels were preempted when, on the evening of August 27, Honasan and his trainees rode south on commandeered buses, dozens of 6X6 trucks and three tanks along the North Diversion Road towards Manila.

Their classroom blackboards were later found to have contained maps with the presidential offices at Malacañang Palace and AFP headquarters at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City marked as targets.

By midnight, they were joined by troops from other nearby military camps near the Santa Rita tollgate in Guiguinto, Bulacan,[7][5] and flew inverted Philippine flags symbolizing war.

[6] General Ramos subsequently said that the rebels to aimed "to kill the President and her family,"[11] which was further highlighted by an intercepted radio message discovered by the Integrated National Police on August 27 mentioning Aquino's assassination by the end of the month.

After her duty officer went out to inspect the situation, she made futile calls to Ramos, who was on this way to Camp Aguinaldo at that time, and her Executive Secretary, Joker Arroyo, before deciding to wait the fighting out by praying the rosary with her daughter.

[12] An advance rebel party tried to enter Gate 1 of Camp Aguinaldo but were initially held off by a squad led by Colonel Emiliano Templo and backed by armored vehicles.

They were later joined by vintage T-28 aircraft from Sangley Point Air Station in Cavite who strafed rebel positions in the camp and bombed the west wing of the GHQ building, further contributing to the existing fire.

[19] Lim then launched an assault on rebel positions in the compound and on the adjacent Camelot Hotel, supported by the T-28 fighters from Camp Aguinaldo, which left one policeman killed and two wounded.

[20][6][12][17] Back in Fort Magsaysay, a unit led by Major Horacio Lactao broke out of the camp in the morning of August 28 to join RAM forces in Manila.

After a briefing by two senior RAM members, the group set out at midnight on August 29 to launch a takeover of the city, only to abort the plan after being informed by sentries of the coup's failure.

[26] General Ramos issued a shoot-to-kill order on Honasan,[6] who was captured by the military in a house in Valle Verde, Pasig on December 9, 1987,[27] but escaped from a prison ship in 1988.

In 1989, the first convictions relating to the coup attempt were issued, with a court martial sentencing nine officers, including Berroya, who had surrendered in November 1987, to eight years imprisonment with hard labor for their role in the seizure of Camp Olivas.

[31] In 1993, Honasan, who remained in hiding, and other RAM members availed of an amnesty offered by Ramos, by then Aquino's successor as president, to participants in the coup attempts of the 1980s, which enabled him to run and win a seat in the Philippine Senate during elections held in 1995.

[7] Following the coup attempt, all 26 members of the Aquino cabinet resigned on September 9,[26] and her government veered to the right, dismissing perceived left-leaning officials such as Joker Arroyo and tacitly authorizing the establishment of armed, quasi-military groups to combat the ongoing communist insurgency.

[35] From his exile in Hawaii, Ferdinand Marcos denied involvement in the coup, but said that he was ready to return to power if the rebels overthrew Aquino and invited him back.