MANILA, 1 August 2003 — Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo warned yesterday that a group of soldiers whose mutiny failed last week was part of a larger plot that still threatened the country’s leadership.
Police filed coup charges yesterday against 321 soldiers and junior officers allegedly involved in the bloodless mutiny Sunday. Government prosecutors must now decide if there is enough evidence for a formal indictment and trial.
President Arroyo said the threat from the coup plot was not over but is being brought under control. “We are engaged in pre-emptive measures — administratively, operationally and politically.”
Arroyo said her decision giving authorities the power of arrest without warrants — implemented after the uprising began — will remain in force as “a warning and caution there are enemies of the constitution who are still unaccounted for.”
National Security Adviser Roilo Golez told a congressional hearing into Sunday’s mutiny that the rebel soldiers wanted to seize power and set up a 15-member “national recovery council” that would govern the country. A rebel document detailed a three-point plan by the mutineers and their civilian supporters for their first three months in power.
It said the junta had aimed to “isolate and neutralize societal elements bent on dismantling” it, stabilize the economic and political situation, and “inject hope toward the future among a broad cross-section of Philippine society.”
The plan said the group would dissolve the Supreme Court and replace it with a temporary state council of justice, and shut down Congress. The mutineers planned to arrest “a few key personalities” in the military, the government and the judiciary involved in disgraced ex-President Joseph Estrada’s ouster in January 2001, the document said. Estrada’s lawyers have denied he was involved.
The group also said it would call for a 100-day cease-fire and pursue peace talks with Muslim separatist and communist rebels.
