"The station has been loyal to the desires of the people," Coronel said, his hands stained with ink from constructing anti-government placards. "We want to return constitutionality to the government. We don't want them to sell our country."
In the one-room studio at the station, which has been broadcasting since 1998, the telephone lines lit up as residents called in to vent their frustrations.
Students clash with police during an anti-government protest in Quito. The president blames a radio station for encouraging the massive demonstrations.
(Cecilia Puebla -- AP)
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"I'm 87 years old, and I want to die defending my country!" screamed one caller. "Two of my relatives were officials, and both retired because they couldn't take the corruption anymore!"
The caller's comments were met with applause from announcers in the studio, where employees had hung anti-Gutierrez banners like those seen throughout the capital.
"I am just trying to respect the dynamic that is out there among the people," explained Velasco, 46. "The people want the government to leave, and we're just providing them with a place to be heard. We simply opened our microphones to the public."
Velasco said his station had not organized any protests, but instead had relayed information from helpful callers. He said cell phones had been the instruments behind the widespread demonstrations.
Radio La Luna is part of a nongovernmental organization called the Popular Education Center, which maintains offices above the studio. A line of security guards guarded the building Tuesday morning -- a precaution Velasco said was taken after government supporters attempted to storm the studio and halt programming last week.
The government denied interfering with the station.
"Every day, they call the president a dictator and say he is incapable -- what don't they call him?" Velez, the presidential spokesman, said of the station. "Is there one journalist in prison here? Is there one journalist being persecuted? Is there one who's received an order from the president of the republic to be shut down? Not one. They can claim 1,000 things, but they have no proof."
Congress planned to continue debating the future of the court and of Gutierrez on Wednesday, and the government's future seemed far from certain.
"Gutierrez has had majority support in Congress, but I think at any moment he could lose that majority," said Michael Shifter, an analyst with the Inter-American Dialogue, a nonprofit group in Washington. "The situation is very fluid."
