Archive for October 22nd, 2007
AFP checks C4 stockpile after being linked to mall blast
MANILA, Philippines — All three major services of the Armed Forces — the Army, Navy, and Air Force — have undertaken inventories of their respective stocks of the explosive C4 explosives, a military spokesman said Monday.
The checks were done in response to allegations linking the military to the explosion at a shopping mall in the Makati City financial district last Friday that left 11 people killed and scores more wounded, Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro said.
Reports said traces of RDX, a component of C4, which is used mainly by the military, were found at the site of the explosion at the Glorietta 2 mall, although investigators later belied this.
“The accounting is done periodically, but for this purpose, [the C4 inventory] is being checked,” Bacarro told reporters in Camp Aguinaldo, referring to reports linking the military to the explosion.
“There was an attribution that it was C4. There were reports coming out, and this is being checked,” he said.
He said the check was made on the initiative of the major services, and was not ordered by Armed Forces chief of staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr.
While C4 is used exclusively by government security forces, Bacarro said it could be acquired illegally by “anyone who has the money.”
Over the weekend, Esperon flatly denied allegations linking the military to the explosion, even as he pledged to cooperate in the police’s investigation of the incident.
Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, a former Navy lieutenant who is detained on coup charges, accused the government of masterminding the Friday attack.
He said the explosion was similar to a supposed attack carried out under Oplan Greenbase, an alleged plan by the government to bomb Davao City in early 2003 and blame it on the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to justify an assault
on the Buliok Complex, a main rebel camp in central Mindanao.
The alleged Oplan and supposed corruption in government were the gripes of the Magdalo group, which Trillanes served as spokesman, when it staged a short-lived mutiny on July 27, 2003.
Taking a swipe at Trillanes, Bacarro said key members of the Magdalo have admitted that Oplan Greenbase was fake when they apologized to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2004.
View article as posted on INQUIRER.net
Lawyers of ‘plotters’ want court martial in Manila
MANILA, Philippines — Demanding “fair treatment,” lawyers of 28 military officers facing court martial over an alleged coup plot in February 2006 will ask the Armed Forces chief of staff to transfer hearings of their case to Manila from an Army camp in Tanay, Rizal province, where they are detained.
In a letter to General Hermogenes Esperon Jr., the defense panel will cite the courts martial of officers involved in the 1987, 1989 and 2003 coup attempts, which were held in Camp Aguinaldo and Fort Bonifacio, said Rodrigo Artuz, counsel for Marine Colonel Ariel Querubin.
Moreover, holding the hearings at Camp Capinpin in Tanay town, some 60 kilometers east of the capital, has been “too costly” for the accused officers and their families, who spend around P5,000 per lawyer every hearing day, Artuz told reporters.
“The primary reason is fair treatment, because [the trials of soldiers] in the ‘87, ‘89, and 2003 coup, [hearings] were in Fort Bonifacio, and these were more violent, there was a show of force. In [our clients’] case, there was nothing,” Artuz said.
Two of the accused in the February 2006 case, Army Brigadier General Danilo Lim, and Querubin, were also tried for the 1989 coup, the bloodiest attempt to overthrow then president Corazon Aquino.
But the trial was terminated after Aquino’s successor, Fidel Ramos, granted amnesty to Lim, Querubin, and other military rebels.
Artuz said the accused, as well as their families, approved of the defense panel’s efforts to seek the transfer the hearing venue.
“The hearings are held twice a month, and it has been too costly for the accused,” Artuz told reporters.
Contrary to the military’s claim, Artuz said the accused officers pose no security risk.
“We think the chief of staff is fair enough…People change their minds, depending on the circumstances,” the lawyer said.
Artuz said defense lawyers were also considering asking Esperon anew to return their clients to their detention cells in Fort Bonifacio.
He said he would also file a habeas corpus petition after the defense panel discovered that the pre-trial advice (PTA), the basis for charging the 28 officers with mutiny, had not been signed by Esperon.
“The PTA was not signed, [so] technically, there is no basis for the detention” he said.
Lim and Querubin, supposedly with ex-Marine commandant Major General Renato Miranda’s knowledge, allegedly planned a mass withdrawal of support from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on February 24, 2006, to coincide with anti-government protests to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1986 People Power uprising that toppled the Marcos dictatorship.
View article as posted on INQUIRER.net
Deadline all the time 