All alleged Feb 06 coup plotters consolidated at Tanay Army camp

By Ronron
February 27, 2007

Tanay, Rizal - Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. ordered the consolidation of all 28 accused Army and Marine officers at the 2nd Infantry Division headquarters here at Camp Capinpin effective Tuesday.

As a result, all nine accused Marine officers (except one who is undergoing treatment at a hospital) who are detained separately at Fort San Felipe in Cavite City (six) and at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City (three) were no longer transported back to their original detention places after yesterday’s court martial proceedings here.

“The rationale is to consolidate them to make it easier for them to attend these proceedings… It’s more on convenience. But of course, another underlying reason is security. You have to ferry them from Cavite to Tanay every now and then, and every time there is a hearing, of course there is an element of risk,” AFP Public Information Officer Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro told reporters here.

The AFP has earlier placed the 19 accused Army officers in detention here, which Bacarro calls as the AFP Task Force Joint Custodial Center.

Before taken to their bus after the court proceedings, Marine Col. Ariel Querubin expressed objection to their transfer. “We don’t want it,” he shouted at reporters in Filipino.

Querubin’s wife complained that the decision of Esperon is “absurd, a sham, and farcical.”

She also challenged the Navy Flag Officer in Command (FOIC), Vice Admiral Rogelio Calunsag, to defend the accused Marine officers from what she calls as “Esperon’s maltreatment of them.”

But Bacarro said there should be no reason for complaining because there is no difference in the detention facilities.

“They will be provided with basis necessities that would be comfortable for them to live in,” Bacarro said./DMS