The Philippine government yesterday warned of threats of another mutiny following last weekend's failed uprising by disgruntled junior officers and soldiers who had allegedly plotted to set up a 15-man junta.
"It is true that the plot is far from over, but it is being contained and will soon be completely under control," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a statement. "We are engaged in pre-emptive measures -- administratively, operationally and politically."
Arroyo said her weekend state of rebellion declaration that gives authorities power of arrest without warrants will remain in force as "a warning and caution there are enemies of the constitution who are still unaccounted for."
"There are plotters, operators, financiers and backers, both in and out of government, who are still in the cold. We will expose them and bring them to justice," she vowed.
Still, there did not appear to be any extra security outside the presidential palace yesterday.
Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Narciso Abaya told a congressional inquiry into Sunday's brazen but bloodless mutiny that the military decided not to bring the mutineers, detained in Manila's military intelligence headquarters, to the House of Representatives hearing because "it is our assessment that the threat is still live."
"Based on our information, there are several members who are still at large, who we believe might be part of the coup attempt," Abaya said.
National Security Adviser Roilo Golez told the same hearing the plotters had aimed to set up a 15-man military junta to rule the country.
"Phase 2 [of the plan] involved the setting up of a 15-man national recovery council, which appears to be a junta, that shall govern the country with the chairman as head of state," Golez said, without elaborating.
Abaya said the military was still interrogating some of 300 rebel soldiers and officers who took over a ritzy commercial and shopping complex in Manila's financial district and wired it with explosives.
The mutineers gave up 19 hours later after they were promised that their grievances would be addressed.
Meanwhile yesterday police transferred Ramon Cardnenas, a close ally of disgraced ex-President Joseph Estrada and the only civilian charged with aiding Sunday's mutiny, to a hospital with high blood pressure, officials said.
Abaya also disclosed that some of the mutinous leaders, who had met with Arroyo days before Sunday's takeover, had received death threats from their comrades who had warned them against revealing the plot.
Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, who also testified yesterday, said he could not rule out another mutiny, but assured the jittery nation that it would not succeed.
The House inquiry was carried live on TV and radio as security forces remained on high alert.
"Although we cannot assure that it will not happen anymore ... any attempt like that of Sunday's will not and will never be successful," Reyes told DZMM radio station.
"No attempt at power grab or diminishing the power of the state will succeed unless it is supported by the people," he said. "In our situation today, there is no popular, moral outrage."
The country's military intelligence chief, Brigadier General Victor Corpus, resigned Wednesday and warned that the crisis surrounding the insurrection was far from over.
"The current political crisis is far from finished. There is still deep restiveness in the officers' corps," Corpus wrote in the resignation letter to Arroyo.
A detained leader of the mutineers, Navy Lieutenant Senior Grade Antonio Trillanes, has also warned there were other troops sympathetic to his group that authorities have not yet identified and accounted for.
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