| Slay
plot on President declassified
By
Karl B. Kaufman, Reporter
Manila
Times, Tuesday, August 12, 2003
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2003/aug/12/top_stories/20030812top2.html
MARINE
Captain Gary Alejano, a member of the Presidential Security
Group who joined the Magdaló coup plotters and one
of the five junior officers presently detained in Camp Aguinaldo,
was assigned to lead President Arroyo straight into an ambush
site had last month’s coup attempt coup proceeded as
planned.
This
was disclosed by the military on Monday.
The
disclosure came as the military declassified “Oplan Andres,”
a plot concocted by the enemies of the Arroyo administration
to topple it “through the use of strong, decisive military
action” and install a new leadership.
For
the first time since the July 27 siege in Makati City, the
military directly incriminated opposition Sen. Gregorio “Gringo”
Honasan as the brains behind the coup.
“They
intended to install somebody with a code name kuya as head
of state, and based on the master list of names and code names
contained in the diskettes recovered by the military, kuya
referred to Senator Honasan,” said Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia,
the Armed Forces vice chief of staff, in a press briefing.
“Oplan
Andres” was contained in 10 diskettes recovered by the
military in Room 1805 of the Oakwood Premier service apartment
in Makati City, where rebel soldiers stayed during the July
27 failed mutiny.
Garcia
said “Oplan Andres” was designed to topple the government
using all means available, including the assassination of
President Arroyo.
Alejano,
a member of Philippine Military Academy class of 1995, was
with the Presidential Security Group (PSG) before he joined
the group of soldiers that stormed Oakwood. He is code-named
“Pawikan” on the recovered master list. His participation
in the mutiny was to drive the “saleslady” out of
“Robinsons.”
The
code name “saleslady” alludes to President Arroyo
and “Robinsons” is Malacañang Palace, the
declassified information said.
“The
original plan was for Pawikan to lead the presidential convoy
and drive it straight into an ambush,” Garcia said.
Tactical
interrogation of Alejano, however, failed to confirm the information.
“He is keeping his mouth shut,” Garcia said.
Alejano–along
with Navy Lt. SGs. Antonio Trillanes IV, James Layug and Army
Captains Gerardo Gambala and Milo Maestrecampo–are locked
up inside the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of
the Philippines compound in Camp Aguinaldo.
The
military tagged three active officers as senior advisers of
the 300-odd soldiers, including more than a hundred officers,
who staged the short-lived mutiny.
Under
interrogation by their commanders are Colonels Herbert Avinante,
Pompeyo Limbo and Major Demy Terajes, whose names reportedly
appeared on a master list contained in a diskette recovered
by the military in Oakwood after the 22-hour stand-off.
Avenante,
code-named “Amo” on the list, is a commandant in
the Combat Army School in the Philippine Army’s Training
and Doctrine Command. Limbo, code-named “Ilog,”
is the assistant chief of the Philippine Army’s Plan
and Programs Division.
Avinante
and Limbo are members of Philippine Military Academy class
’78, which had adopted President Arroyo as a member.
Tejares
of PMA Class ’83 is the present commander of the 10th
Infantry Division based in Zamboanga del Norte. He is code-named
“Lawin,” according to the master list declassified
on Monday by the military.
Tejares
gained notoriety when he was implicated in the abduction and
murder of a University of Santo Tomas student, Mark Welson
Chua, on March 18, 2001.
Chua,
then a budding journalist, was brutally murdered for exposing
alleged anomalies in the UST Reserve Officers Training Corps,
where Tejares served as a commandant. The scandal cost Tejares
his promotion to lieutenant colonel.
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