|
|
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Police on full alert against government destabilization plot (4:12 p.m.)
MANILA -- Police across the Philippines went on full alert Tuesday against moves to destabilize President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as she fights corruption allegations against her and her family.
"The seat of government power is besieged anew by malicious efforts to throw it off balance by way of a seemingly elaborate and grand design at destabilization," National Police Chief Arturo Lomibao said in a statement.
Police spokesman Leopoldo Bataoil said a group--which he declined to identify--had been recruiting police officers to join the anti-Arroyo camp. The group's leaders had been identified and evidence was being gathered against them, he said.
He said police would "remain faithful to the constitution and our sworn duty."
The police statements come amid days of swirling rumors about a possible coup and twin scandals that threaten to implicate Arroyo's husband and son in illegal gambling payoffs and herself in alleged vote rigging at last year's election.
Ongoing Senate hearings into an illegal numbers game, jueteng, have heard witnesses claim that Arroyo's husband and son received payoffs. Both have denied any links to illegal gambling.
The hearings are similar to those that preceded the impeachment trial of Arroyo's predecessor, Joseph Estrada, who was forced to step down amid massive anti-corruption protests in January 2001.
Opposition members, including Estrada's son, Senator Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada, are pressing hard for evidence against Arroyo's family in the hearings.
On Monday, Arroyo tried to head off expected opposition claims that she rigged the elections by having spokesman Ignacio Bunye play two cassette tapes of conversations between Arroyo and an election official.
The opposition had been expected to release a taped phone conversation in which Arroyo appeared to press for a million-vote margin over her chief rival, the late action movie star Fernando Poe, Jr.
Bunye said Arroyo's phone had been illegally tapped and that one of the tapes was obviously spliced with a false voice of an election commissioner to try and implicate the president.
Bunye said Arroyo welcomes a "responsible opposition... but there is one group who only wants to make destabilization moves." He did not elaborate.
Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Efren Abu on Sunday tried to defuse coup rumors, saying senior officers would resist moves by "certain sectors" that wanted to undermine military unity. (AP) |
|
|
|
