Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman Danilo “Danny” Lim passed away on Tuesday, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque confirmed. He was 65 years old.
As head of the MMDA, one of the government agencies working in the frontlines amid the pandemic, Lim announced he contracted COVID-19 in late December. He said his symptoms were mild.
A retired military brigadier general, Lim led the failed coup d’etat against former President Corazon Aquino in 1989. He was detained for two years until he was granted amnesty by Aquino’s successor, Fidel V. Ramos.
He was also accused in 2006 of plotting the ouster of then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Along with other Magdalo soldiers, including future Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, Lim was involved in the 2007 Manila Peninsula siege, where rebel troops stormed out of a court hearing and holed up in The Peninsula Manila hotel to call for Arroyo’s resignation.
Lim was detained from 2006 to 2010 under the Arroyo administration on charges of rebellion and attempted coup d’ etat.
Before his appointment to the MMDA in 2017, he was named by former President Benigno Aquino III as the Bureau of Customs Deputy Commissioner. He resigned in July 2013 owing to alleged corruption in the bureau.
Lim lost when he ran for a Senate seat in 2010.