|
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Intel chief links Loi, Jude Estrada to mutiny
MANILA -- A military intelligence official has accused two members of the Estrada family as having conspired with junior military officers in last month's attempt to overthrow the Arroyo administration in his testimony before a fact-finding committee Tuesday.
Maj. Gen. Pedro Cabuay, the new chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, told members of an independent commission investigating the failed mutiny on July 27 that his office has discovered evidence linking Sen. Luisa Ejercito and her son Jude Estrada to the failed coup d'état last July 27.
National Security Adviser Roilo Golez told the same commission that opposition Sen. Gregorio Honasan and the military cabal behind the failed uprising planned to temporarily reinstate deposed leader Joseph Estrada after murdering President Arroyo.
The government halted the plan when it arrested more than 300 soldiers who barricaded themselves in Manila's Makati financial district. Arroyo has also launched the prosecution of Honasan and a senior Estrada aide as well as an Estrada mistress for rebellion.
According to Cabuay, two vans used by rebel soldiers in the alleged coup attempt have Senate and North Greenhills stickers. The JELP Realty in Fort San Felipe in Cavite, which is reportedly owned by the Ejercitos and which has an office in North Greenhills, allegedly owned the vehicles.
He said documents addressed to Jude Estrada were found in the vehicles but did not reveal their contents.
The military intelligence service and other intelligence agencies had known about the coup plot and had been monitoring it even before the short-lived mutiny, Cabuay added.
Chilling prospects
Based on the plan, Estrada "would be sprung from detention and then reinstalled in Malacanang" presidential palace when the coup attempt was to be launched on August 4, Golez said in his testimony.
"After three days, he would be asked to step down to pave the way for the establishment of a revolutionary government headed by Senator Honasan," Golez added.
Estrada, deposed in a 2001 popular revolt and detained while on trial for rebellion, has denied involvement in the coup plot. Honasan has meanwhile gone on hiding after rejecting government allegations that he led the coup.
"The assessment of the intelligence community at that time was that Estrada was important to the group in terms of funding requirements and the need to combine the civilian supporters of the ousted leader with the military component as soon as the coup unfolded."
"It is clear that had the rebels succeeded in their scheme, we would have faced two chilling prospects: quite possibly a dead president and a military dictatorship," Golez added.
Elaborating on details of the plot first revealed by the military on Monday, Golez said Honasan allegedly attended some of the meetings of the military rebel leaders when they plotted their power grab in June.
Elite Army Scout Ranger, Marine, Air Force, and Navy Special Warfare Group units were targeted for rebel recruitment to comprise 17 task groups to simultaneously seize targets including the Malacañang palace, military camps, Manila airport, and broadcast facilities, he said.
The plot would have been directed at a "command and control center" manned by a "department of elders" including Senator Honasan, Golez said.
"Task Group I was supposed to capture and neutralize Malacañang. The assassination of the President is a very real possibility in this scenario," he added.
Arms smuggling
The unmasking of the plot and the government's "decisive counter-action apparently forced the group to prematurely move with less than the forces they planned," Golez said in his testimony before the Malacañang-formed Feliciano Commission that started its investigation on the mutiny Tuesday.
Cabuay, at the same time, also confirmed allegations of some junior officers of widespread corruption and arms smuggling in the military.
He has named two Marine captains, as well as unnamed Navy and Army captains, who are to testify on the sale of arms to rebel factions.
On the filing of rebellion charges against Estrada mistress Laarni Enriquez, Arroyo's spokesman Ignacio Bunye denied that the move was a form of political persecution.
He said the complaint was based on evidence and not on her affiliation to any political group or closeness to a political personality.
"That is the perception of the one accused but you know for a fact that the legal processes will have to be followed. And the rights of the accused will be observed in this particular incident," he stressed.
Enriquez was charged with rebellion last week after paraphernalia used by the rebel soldiers who occupied the Oakwood Premier Hotel in Makati City last July 27 were found in a townhouse owned by her.
The actress said the administration is merely using her to render Estrada "inutile" in the 2004 elections.
She said the final salvo would be the filing of rebellion charges against Estrada "to push him into a corner...to keep him busy so he cannot support any candidate in the elections." Miko Santos/With AFP
(August 13, 2003 issue)
Want Sun.Star news on your mobile phone? Click here.
Write letter to the editor. Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board. Click here. |
|
|
|
 |
| click
to comment on this article or discuss it with other readers |
[return to top]
[home]
|
|
SC directs military to produce mutineers