Generals: No coup plot

Military generals are not plotting to unseat Pre-sident Arroyo, the head of the Association of Generals and Flag Officers (AGFO) said yesterday.

"Coup rumors are not true," Brig. Gen. Ernesto Gidaya, AGFO president, told a news conference.

Meanwhile, a Malacañang official yesterday dismissed calls made by the opposition that the government file rebellion charges against organizers of the so-called "Freedom Force."

"What (charges) are they talking about?" acting Press Secretary Silvestre Afable said. "This supposed Freedom Force doesn’t even have faces. As I understood it, it’s just an idea up in the air."

Coup rumors have been circulating that the Freedom Force, which reportedly includes top military officers, has been plotting a coup against Mrs. Arroyo.

Gidaya categorically denied that his group "has anything to do with alleged support by some generals for the Freedom Force." He said the association supports Mrs. Arroyo as the commander-in-chief and urged Filipinos to unite behind the government.

"This meeting is being held to dispel any doubt that AGFO is involved in any move to destabilize the government," Gidaya said.

Since she assumed office in January 2001, Mrs. Arroyo has been dogged by coup rumors. The latest talk has focused on expected protests next Wednesday, the anniversary of the bloody attempt by 50,000 supporters of former President Joseph Estrada to storm the presidential palace and reinstate their idol.

Afable said although STAR columnist Teodoro Benigno had earlier openly admitted being behind the Freedom Force, he pointed out that the movement is still in its conception stage.

In his column on April 22, Benigno predicted that there would soon be a social upheaval due the country’s enormous problems. He said that would require the "collective leadership" of a "Freedom Force" that would be launched in June.

But Benigno later denied that that meant a plot to seize power and install a junta.

Benigno and other leaders of the Council of Philippine Affairs (COPA) blamed Malacañang official Conrado Limcaoco for the coup rumors.

Limcaoco, presidential assistant for ecclesiastical and media affairs, furnished reporters copies of a letter from Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin to Benigno, rejecting Benigno’s suggestion for a "collective leadership."

"The President was not consulted in the release of the report. It was Dodi Limcaoco who released that on his own," Afable said. "He thought it was his own responsibility. I don’t think we can fault him for that."

Mrs. Arroyo yesterday said her government’s "social reform agenda," which is aimed at reducing the country’s wrenching poverty, would prevent any social upheaval.

Afable debunked Benigno’s analysis that the country is headed for a crisis. "He (Benigno) has every right to think about political and social events. He was thinking of a scenario where there is an upheaval from the left and upheaval from the right, and the middle forces will come and save the situation," he said. "That situation is not present in our country today. I disagree with him."

If that were the case, Afable pointed out, the situation "would already be reflected in the volume and content of text messages" being exchanged across the country.

"You would be able to monitor it and feel it. There would be an air of agitation and protest. That is simply not here today," he said.

Afable also doubted that a coup against Mrs. Arroyo was in the works. "There is really no basis to say there is a conspiracy between the armed forces and the police, an armed conspiracy that is allied with any "middle forces,’" he said. "There are rumblings from sectors of the military but we have always encountered these."

For the past weeks, some grumblings have been heard from ranking military officers over the possible appointment of Southern Command chief Lt. Gen. Roy Cimatu as the next Armed Forces chief-of-staff. Critics have questioned Cimatu’s qualifications.

Gidaya cautioned Malacañang yesterday against extending the terms of retiring military officers, including Cimatu, who is retiring on July 4.

"If she (Mrs. Arroyo) chooses somebody, well, that is her prerogative. But the moment there is extension, it might not be welcomed by many." Gidaya said. "You make not only who are qualified unhappy but also those who are waiting to be promoted."

Under the Constitution, all military personnel must retire when they reach the age of 56, except the Armed Forces chief whose term could be extended.

Angara warns anti-GMA forces

At the Senate, meanwhile, Sen. Edgardo Angara warned anti-Arroyo forces against mounting coups or any plots to destabilize the government.

"We have to work within the system and replacing Mrs. Arroyo should be done in the 2004 elections," he said.

While the opposition believes that Mrs. Arroyo has neither the leadership qualities nor the competence to run the country, coups and destabilization plots are worse alternatives, Angara said.

"An extra-constitutional effort will be fatal to the country," he warned, adding that his party, the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, would not support such adventurism.

"We will patiently wait for 2004," he said. "We are more responsible and constructive than her political allies, groups supposedly within her ruling political coalition."

Meanwhile, Sen. Blas Ople yesterday called on the COPA to disband itself for "having degenerated into clubs of frustrated job seekers, intriguers and mischief-makers against the country’s political stability."

He claimed that COPA’s call for collective leadership to replace the Arroyo administration is "a thinly veiled attempt to retaliate against President Arroyo for denying them jobs they do not deserve."

He said COPA’s leaders wanted to lay claim to public office "which they believe they have earned through their nominal presence in EDSA II," referring to the popular protest in 2001 that ousted then President Estrada and catapulted Mrs. Arroyo to office.

"I believe it is right and proper for the President to ignore this insignificant group of self-seeking lobbyists purporting to be her allies but are intriguing to undermine her administration and the political stability of the country," Ople said.

"These bodies of self-seeking claimants like COPA should disband themselves and look for their own honest means of livelihood other than undeserved offices they claim in the government." — Marichu Villanueva, Paolo Romero, Aurea Calica, Efren Danao