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Security officials said they had uncovered a plot by
Islamic militants linked to the al-Qaeda network to assassinate
President Gloria Arroyo and “other targets.”
President Arroyo’s security
chief, Brig. Gen. Romeo Prestoza, on Thursday said she had been
informed of the threat, which forced her to cancel a scheduled trip
today to the northern resort city of Baguio. He said the plot was
dug up by the Philippine National Police.
“It is not just the President,
there are other targets,” Prestoza told reporters. “If they
[assassins] want to launch it, they can do it anytime.”
The threat, he said, could come
in events both in the country’s premier Metro Manila region and in
the provinces.
When asked to confirm the threat
against Mrs. Arroyo, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the
presumption of the President being assassinated always remains.
“Such threats are always there
and it’s true not only [for] President Arroyo but also [for] other
world leaders. That’s why we have the [Presidential Security
Group] to secure the President,” Ermita added.
Mrs. Arroyo was supposed to
attend the homecoming of Philippine Military Academy graduates in
Baguio over the weekend.
The cancellation was first
announced Wednesday night, two days before a planned anti-Arroyo
rally by opposition and militant groups in Makati City’s financial
district in Metro Manila. Initial reports had said the trip was
scrapped because of the rally.
Security forces across the
country were placed on full alert. Also on Wednesday, the police and
military raised the red alert in Metro Manila.
The assassination plot was
discovered a day ahead of today’s Makati rally that organizers
said will demand the President’s resignation over allegations of
corruption linking the First Family.
The Arroyos and one of their top
allies have been linked by whistleblower Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada
Jr. to the allegedly corruption-tainted national broadband project.
The President’s husband, lawyer Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo and
the major supporter, resigned poll Chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr.,
have denied the charges that they had intended to make millions of
dollars off the aborted $330-million project between the Philippines
and China’s ZTE Corp. Lozada told senators that he had witnessed
the brokering for bribes from the project.
Prestoza said the plot was
hatched by “extremists Jemaah Islamiah and the Abu Sayyaf
Group,” referring to Muslim militant groups with reported links to
al-Qaeda. Jemaah Islamiah is said to be based in Indonesia. The Abu
Sayyaf, an extremist group, operates mainly from its supposed
strongholds in the Philippines’ southern Mindanao region.
Prestoza said the assassination
threat did not appear to be connected with the Makati rally.
Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes
Esperon Jr. said news of the plan “had become the basis of our
action for putting the Armed Forces of the Philippines in full state
of preparedness.”
He added that militants from
Jemaah Islamiah and Abu Sayyaf were also planning to hit
“high-value targets” around Manila, the nation’s capital.
The plot to kill the President,
Esperon said, will be carried out by the two groups. “I know that
it would be by … one would be by direct assassination by rifle, by
a sniper.”
He said breakaway rebels from the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front, another Muslim group also active in
Mindanao, will sow violence in Metro Manila.
Jemaah Islamiah and Abu Sayyaf
had been blamed for the worst terrorist attacks in the Philippines
in recent years. They, however, were known to field “cells”
responsible for bombings around Manila in the past as well.
Earlier Thursday, Army spokesman
Capt. Carlo Ferrer cited intelligence reports that rebels from the
communist New People’s Army (NPA) may infiltrate the ranks of
protesters joining the rally and instigate violence.
The NPA is the armed wing of the
Communist Party of the Philippines, which has been waging a Maoist
rebellion since 1969.
Mrs. Arroyo’s critics have been
holding daily mass actions around the capital calling on her to step
down over the national broadband controversy.
Some business groups have warned
that the scandal could plunge the country into a new round of
political instability and dampen investor confidence.
The government has called for
calm amid the turmoil and challenged the President’s opponents to
file charges in court over the Lozada exposé.
AFP, Xinhua, Angelo S. Samonte
and Anthony Vargas
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