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Friday, January 20, 2006
Cop chief: Mutineers incapable of staging coup
By Rimaliza Opiña
BAGUIO CITY -- National Police Chief Arturo Lomibao said Thursday the four junior officers who escaped Tuesday from military detention are not capable of staging a coup against the Arroyo administration.
Lomibao said the four, who were among the 236 junior military officers and soldiers who staged a failed mutiny against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in July 2003, do not have enough influence to lead an uprising.
Reacting to the escape of the officers, an administration congressman said in Manila that an active general is plotting a coup against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and recruiting members to his cause.
House committee on national defense chairman Sorsogon Representative Jose Solis refused to name the general but stressed the need for government to take drastic action.
In Baguio City, Lomibao said the military and the police have been placed on alert status but repeated that the four soldiers who bolted from a military jail are "not a threat to national security."
The police leadership, he added, is not even considering a loyalty check among its rank.
Lomibao said police will distribute pictures of Army Captain Nathaniel Rambonza, 1st Lieutenants Sonny Sarmiento, Lawrence San Juan and Patricio Bumidang, and Marine Captain Nicanor Faeldon--now considered as fugitives from the law--in seaports, airports, and bus terminals to facilitate their immediate recapture.
Faeldon escaped 34 days before his four fellow mutineers "bolted" from the military detention at the Fort Bonifacio in Makati City Tuesday night.
The five escapees face a rebellion case for leading fellow soldiers in staging a mutiny against the Arroyo government.
On the new coup scheme against Arroyo, Solis said the military hierarchy should keep soldiers from using cellular phones and other forms of communication that could be used to recruit them into joining destabilization plots.
Solis said an open line of communication among soldiers during the Marcos regime had been blamed for the downfall of the late former President Ferdinand Marcos through a military coup instigated by then constabulary chief Fidel Ramos who was later elected to the presidency, defense minister and now senator Juan Ponce Enrile, former defense secretary Renato de Villa, former senator Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan, and other personalities.
Other administration congressmen are seeking a two-week deadline for the military to recapture the escaped mutineers.
House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles and Representative Antonio Cuenco (Lakas, Cebu City), chair of the House committee on foreign affairs, said the military should act quickly to recover the escapees to bolster the people's faith in their competence.
The House leaders also asked the military to not discount the possibility that the mutineers' escape could be part of a plan to once again involve susceptible Armed Forces members in political adventurism. (Sun.Star Baguio/Sunnex/ With DBP)
(January 20, 2006 issue)
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