Eight people including six Philippines military officers were detained yesterday in a raid that may have foiled a plot to attack the legislature during an address by President Gloria Arroyo later this month, the authorities said.
A team of soldiers and police swooped on a house in Manila near the House of Representatives complex before dawn and arrested the eight, seizing guns, bombs, documents and a blueprint of the government building, they said.
"As we all know, the state of the nation address of the president is approaching," national police chief Oscar Calderon told reporters at a news conference.
Arroyo is set to deliver the annual policy address to the legislature on July 24.
The group rented the house several weeks ago and the authorities pounced after a three-day stakeout, military officials said.
"It arouses your interest why they would rent a house there at this point in time, and then we found this blueprint of the [House of Representatives building] in their possession," said armed forces chief of staff General Generoso Senga. "It's too early to jump into conclusions, but we are looking at bits of pieces of information and we are trying to put them together."
The rebel officers were said to be members of Magdalo, a military faction linked to a foiled coup plot against Arroyo that was uncovered earlier this year, as well as another coup attempt in July 2003.
Police have also named the group as potentially responsible for a recent spate of bombings in Manila.
Calderon said police ordnance experts would compare the high explosives that were seized in the raid with evidence previously gathered from the blasts "to determine if the components found at the blast scenes are the same."
Arroyo purged the military brass and filed charges of rebellion and attempting a coup d'etat against a number of opposition political figures in February after accusing the officers and politicians of plotting with communist guerrillas to topple her.
The arrested officers were named as 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.
Rabonza, Bumidang and Sarmiento, along with another rebel officer, First Lieutenant Lawrence San Juan, escaped from a military jail on Jan. 17 this year. He 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.
Calderon hoped that the arrests reduce fears of coup plots.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS