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Philippine army releases details of coup scheme

A group of coup plotters arrested last week in the Philippines had an audacious plan to seize control of the House of Representatives and take legislators hostage, the army said yesterday.

The plot was foiled with the arrest on Friday of eight people including six military officers in a raid on their safehouse near the government buildings.

Their plan included "the taking of hostages of different members of the House of Representatives," said army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Baccaro, basing his comments on documents uncovered in the raid.

Other military spokesmen told reporters that the plotters planned the "bringing down of the government" to pave the way for the establishment of a transitional revolutionary regime.

The identities of those who would have led the new government were not disclosed.

The rebels are thought to have been scheduling the attack to coincide with President Gloria Arroyo's annual of the nation address before a joint session of the House and the Senate on July 24.

Large team

The coup plan envisioned a team of 120 people conducting special operations to target government and private installations including "prominent personalities," Bacarro said.

These operations, including the positioning of snipers, were intended to prevent the government from marshalling its forces to recapture the House.

The military officials did not say if Arroyo herself had been targeted as a hostage.

"Although the plan is feasible, the probability of it being implemented is nil because they don't have the numbers, they don't have the firearms required and, with the capture of the key leaders, it would be doomed to fail," Bacarro said.

Along with the seizure of the House of Representatives, the plotters also planned to bring together sympathetic active and retired military officers, as well as anti-Arroyo civic groups, at a church near the House to declare their withdrawal of support for the president.

Link to bombings

Bacarro said that laptop computers seized from the rebels' safehouse contained proof that the plotters were also the same group behind a spate of bombings of police camps and government buildings in the past few weeks.

The blasts had been claimed by an obscure group called "Masses and Soldiers," indicating that this could be another name adopted by the coup plotters.

The officers arrested on Friday are Captain Nathaniel Rabonza, First Lieutenants Patricio Bumidang and Sonny Sarmiento, Second Lieutenants Angelbert Gay and Aldrin Baldonado, and one officer identified only as Lieutenant Sabada.

Disaffected officers

They are said to belong to a group of officers called "Magdalo," named after one of two anti-colonial factions to fight Spain for Philippine independence in 1898.

The officers have been linked to previous coup attempts against Arroyo, such as the failed one-day mutiny in July 2003 and a coup plot in February that prompted Arroyo to declare a week-long state of emergency.

Rabonza, Bumidang and Sarmiento, along with another rebel officer, First Lieutenant Lawrence San Juan, escaped from a military jail on Jan. 17. San Juan was arrested a month later.

The detained civilians were lawyer Christopher Belmonte -- who had been out on bail on rebellion charges following his arrest alongside San Juan in February -- and Mike Yamzon, for whom no other details were given.
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