The Philippine army said yesterday that it was questioning more officers and enlisted men for their suspected involvement in an alleged coup plot last month.
Major General Hermogenes Esperon, the army chief, confirmed that Lieutenant Colonel Nestor Flordeliza, the sacked chief of staff of the elite First Scout Ranger Regiment, and Captain Ruben Guinolbay, a Scout Ranger company commander, were among those to be questioned.
Esperon refused to say how many army personnel were being questioned. But another army official who spoke on condition of anonymity said eight Scout Ranger officers and 17 enlisted men were being investigated and had been restricted to quarters.
The official alleged the 25 men attempted to join an aborted march on Feb. 24 to be led by relieved Scout Ranger commander Brigadier General Danilo Lim, during which soldiers were supposed to withdraw support from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Two of the officers and the 17 enlisted men stationed in eastern Camarines Sur Province were intercepted by forces loyal to Arroyo, while the rest were prevented from leaving their camp by fellow soldiers, the official said.
Esperon told reporters investigators are looking into different offenses, including a failure to quell a possible mutiny, inciting and participation in mutiny.
"We have to be thorough about the investigation as we intend to throw the full force of the law against those whom we find to have committed offenses," he said.
On Wednesday, Lim denied accusations he was part of an attempt to overthrow the Arroyo government or that he forged an alliance with communist rebels.
Esperon, however, claimed that Lim told General Generoso Senga, the military chief, that he planned to join the Feb. 24 march.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS