Tuesday, October 23, 2007 Trillanes snubs police probe on Makati mall blast
OPPOSITION Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, one of the detained leaders of the short-lived Oakwood mutiny, has refused to cooperate with police investigators who have asked him to shed light on his allegations that Armed Forces Chief Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales masterminded last Friday’s bombing at Glorieta mall in Makati City.
In a statement, the PNP-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group on Monday said sent a team of CIDG investigators at Trillanes’ detention inside the Marine headquarters last Saturday purposely to ask for his basis in making the accusation.
Quoting reports from the CIDG-National Capital Region, the statement said Trillanes “refused to elaborate or give other details on his accusations, saying what he released to the media is all that he can give at this moment.”
“He also refused to provide a formal written statement relative to his press statement,” the press statement added of Trillanes, who has said the bombing was meant to divert public attention from issues hounding the Arroyo government.
Trillanes has said the bombing was reminiscent of Oplan Greenbase, a military operation plan which called for bombings in Mindanao to justify the assault of a Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) camp in Central Mindanao several years ago.
The operational plan was among the reasons why the group Trillanes occupied the posh Oakwood apartments in Makati City where they denounced corruption in the government. However, the operational plan was later found to be fraudulent.
“Despite all efforts put up by the investigating team to elicit more information from the neophyte senator, no cooperation was garnered from that meeting,” the CIDG statement read, referring to the former Navy lieutenant senior grade.
AFP public information officer Bartolome Bacarro, meanwhile, said the military would be vindicated that the explosion was not caused by a bomb. Investigators are looking into the possibility that the blast was caused by industrial accident.
“It that happens, if indeed later on it would be found out that it’s not a bombing incident, of course that will dispel all the allegations hurled against the AFP,” Bacarro told a press briefing at the military’s general headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo.
On calls by some quarters for Esperon to resign, Bacarro implied that the AFP chief will not heed the call, saying “We don’t know the reason, what’s the basis for all these calls but we can say that they are politicizing that incident.”
“The chief of staff, immediately after the incident, has called for sobriety while the investigation is ongoing. Let us all wait for the result of the investigation, let us not jump into conclusion because later on those who are accusing us will have no conclusions to land on,” he said.
“The chief of staff is disappointed in a way (to be accused as the mastermind). That instead of us sympathizing with the families of the victims, people are using the incident for politicking, to advance their intention,” Bacarro added. (VR/Sunnex)
