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.
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
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
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
RSS