MANILA, Philippines -- About a year ago, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, along with rebel soldiers and a group of civilian sympathizers, took over the posh Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati City after walking out of a court hearing to demand President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to step down.

But after a six-hour standoff on November 29, the Philippine National Police's elite unit, the Special Action Force, in full battle gear attacked the hotel, firing their weapons and throwing teargas before crashing an armored personnel carrier into the lobby, and arresting all those in sight, media included.

Once again, Trillanes and his band failed to dislodge Arroyo.

But not all were arrested as Marine Captain Nicanor Faeldon managed to elude authorities. The government then imposed a 24-hour curfew amid fears of a coup de etat.

A year later, despite admitting defeat, Trillanes vowed that the fight was not over.

In the book "Prisons...Manila Pen and Beyond" by Father Robert Reyes, which was launched Friday, Trillanes justified what has now been called the “Manila Pen siege,” saying that it was pity for the more than 40 million poverty-stricken Filipinos that drove him to try to topple Arroyo for the second time.

He and some 300 junior officers and soldiers who called themselves the Magdalo group tried but failed to do the same in 2003 when they took over the posh Oakwood Apartments also in Makati City. He and a few leaders are still being tried for that mutiny although most of his peers have since either gone back to military service or had been discharged.

"Last November 2007, I made a stand for Mang Nestor [the farmer from whom he derived inspiration for his cause]. I failed then but I will stand up for him someday," said Trillanes, who to this day has remained detained at the highly secured Camp Crame Custodial Center for rebellion, a non-bailable offense.

Another key figure in the Manila Peninsula takeover, former University of the Philippine president Francisco "Dodong" Nemenzo, also admitted that the siege was a “disaster.”

"From one point of view, the Manila Pen demonstration was a disaster. But it also rekindles the morale of the restive soldiers who already thought the Magdalo was dead. Lieutenant Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes showed the nation that years of imprisonment and electoral victory have no diminished his fighting spirit," Nemenzo said in the Reyes' book.

Despite being in hiding, Faeldon managed to contribute his piece. Reyes however refused to tell how he was able to communicate with the fugitive.

"I miss the company of my friends and family, miss the ordinariness of living in society and not looking over my shoulder," Faeldon said in the book, as he, like Trillanes, promised to continue the fight.