MANILA, 16 November 2006 — A former Philippine senator and army colonel who was allegedly among key plotters of February’s failed coup against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was arrested after a dramatic chase yesterday during which he jumped from the second floor of a townhouse trying to evade capture.
A veteran of coup attempts in the 1980s, Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan was on the run since he was charged over the February plot, which prompted Arroyo to declare a weeklong state of national emergency.
He had evaded a nationwide manhunt for nine months, forcing frustrated police chiefs to offer a five-million-peso ($100,000) bounty on his head.
Joint army and police intelligence operatives spotted Honasan in Manila late Tuesday night and tailed his vehicle to the exclusive Greenmeadows residential enclave near the military headquarters in Quezon City.
“The team arrested him after a brief chase,” national police chief Director General Oscar Calderon told a news conference after the capture. Honasan was later taken to a hospital to get treatment for a deep cut in his right foot that required twenty stitches.
Police Director Jesus Verzosa said that prior to Honasan’s arrest, the former lawmaker had hidden in the provinces of Sorsogon, Masbate, Iloilo, and some areas in Southern Luzon. Honasan was reportedly in Metro Manila for the past three weeks.
Two former colonels and close associates of Honasan — named as Jake Malajacan and Felix Turingan, also implicated in the plot — remain at large. Following Honasan’s arrest, Department of Interior Secretary Rolando Puno appealed to other alleged coup plotters in hiding to give themselves up. The Department of Justice, meanwhile, will ask the Makati City Regional Trial Court to allow Honasan’s detention in Fort Santo Domingo, Laguna.
