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Fresh Attempts to Oust Arroyo Fail
JAKARTA, Sept 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A coup d'etat, planned along the same "people power revolt", or Edsa II, that brought President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to power, is again being hatched, this time, to oust her government from power.
The coup, uncovered by the Tribune newspaper in Manila on Monday revealed that military intelligence and elements of the armed forces of the Philippines are combining with Christian Jesuits in an attempt to install a military junta.
Sources in Manila said the backdrop of the coup concerns the recently signed peace agreement between the Philippines government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Movement (MILF).
Information provided to IslamOnline before the signing of the deal in Kuala Lumpur two months ago pointed out to the possibility that the military and Christians in Mindanao were against a peace treaty with the MILF.
However, the Tribune revealed that the plotters wanted to install "a powerful military-civilian junta, with or without Arroyo at the helm".
The paper said the group is planning to use mass demonstrations to carry out its plans, creating an atmosphere of instability in Manila, prompting the military to move in for a coup attempt.
It also said the Makati Business Club (MBC), a group called the Kompil II and the People's Consultative Assembly (PCA), were behind the plot, adding that the plotters' link is Col. Victor Corpus, head of the Intelligence Service of the Armed forces (ISAFP).
In a circulated document, the plotters urged "all of us Filipinos to assist the military in this mission, as we ask them to wage a war against narco-politics and do all they can to crush permanently this diabolic octopus, the personification of evil in our midst."
The coup plot entails the destruction of government institutions: the Senate, judiciary, the presidency, the Armed forces and the Philippine National Police (PNP), followed by the destruction of local government institutions.
The paper described the MBC as a tainted organization with a strange agenda.
Former labor leader Felimon "Popoy" Lagman, before still unknown gunmen assassinated him, told the media that the MBC offered him a lot of money to drop his anti-Arroyo stance.
The MBC also launched an ad campaign with a full-page ad, entitled "Wanted Peace," calling for a millennium of peace in the Philippines.
The same group was reportedly behind several attempts by the Young Officers Union (YOU), a group of young cadets from the Philippines army, which staged several coup attempts against former president Corazon Aquino.
The objective of the group, the newspaper source said, "is far more insidious. The ostensible cause is 'narco-politics', but the real goal is much, much bigger - the capture of political power."
IslamOnline has received information that the main aim is to prevent the concretization of the peace treaty with the Moro Muslims, which may eventually lead to the return of camps captured by the army from the MILF.
The plotter's group is also carrying out a "cleansing" program, which aims at ousting from power what it calls "corrupt" politicians - governors and mayors. It has already targeted the Senate, the army and the judiciary, all of them accused of being corrupt by the intelligence chief.
The Tribune added that the "cleansing" orgy intimated in the same full-page ad also stated that "Peace...must reign in the country's 7,100 islands and islets; most importantly, in MNLF-MILF and communist-controlled communities and infiltrated barangays, and terrorized towns in Basilan."
The MILF and the MNLF are powerful Muslim organizations that are still struggling to achieve their aim of an independent Islamic state in Mindanao.
The Moro-Muslims have been waging a 400-year war against Christian invaders and the present the Philippines government, in Mindanao.
The MILF has a force of 12,000 heavily armed men. It is a splinter group from the Moro National Liberation front (MNLF) that signed a treaty in the early 1990s with the Philippines government.
With additional reporting by Kazi Mahmood
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