Esperon says at least six soldiers sanctioned for alleged recruitment for destabilization

By Ronron
September 21, 2007

At least six personnel of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have been sanctioned for allegedly getting involved in destabilization attempts against the Arroyo government, the top military commander said Friday.

According to Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, the said personnel, who are junior officers and enlisted personnel, were found to have recruited fellow soldiers into joining anti-government efforts.

“There are active members but it’s more of inactive or former members of the military approaching some active members of the military,” Esperon told Camp Aguinaldo reporters yesterday.

“We have done some moves short of arresting them like reassigning them or putting them on hold, and continuing surveillance on them,” he added of the six.

Esperon said the sanctions were imposed “within the last week.” There are also other sanctions in mind, but not as harsh as possible charging before the court martial, he said.

But aside from them, the military leadership is also looking at civilians and politicians who are part of the destabilization efforts, Esperon said.

He said the alleged destabilizers have included in the issues they are raising against the government the recent controversial deal of the government with ZTE Corporation for the National Broadband Network (NBN) Project.

Fortunately, Esperon said, the attempts were not successful based on the fact that there were no unauthorized troops movements monitored.

During the Manila Overseas Press Club (MOPC) Forum at Intercontinental Hotel in Makati City, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, Jr. said the organization is “prepared to deal with those threats.”

He admitted though that even if “they are not succeeding,” the defense department is not taking them lightly.

On Friday afternoon, the AFP National Capital Region Command (NCRCOM) formally accepted in its organization two battalions that will undergo training in the capital for an unspecified period of time to make them prepared to respond for any contingency.

The augmentation troops are from the Philippine Army’s 54th Infantry Battalion, based in Gamu, Isabela, and the Philippine Air Force 760 Combat Group, based in Clark, Pampanga.

“As we have said, there are (destabilization) attempts. We want to be on the safe side. We want to have the forces available here with us, just in case,” Esperon explained.

“This is also an exercise. We want to make sure that we can do what we want to do when there are contingencies that we have to address. So we want to know how fast they can come, we want to know how many people are ready,” he added.

The 443-strong 54th IB was flown in via C130 plane from Isabela, while the 220-strong Air Force troops moved by land early Friday morning.

Unexpectedly, the Air Force personnel had a brief problem in their entry to Manila because they were stopped by elements of the police Special Action Force (SAF) near Balintawak area in Quezon City.

“They held us to check and verify our mission here at the General Headquarters… Maybe we can attribute it to lack of coordination because we were just informed about this at 10 last night (Thursday),” said 760 Combat Group Deputy Commander Maj. Emmanuel Bello when asked of the incident that happened at around 6:30am.

When the SAF personnel were convinced of the mission order they presented, Bello said they were released after almost one hour and a half.

NCRCOM chief Maj. Gen. Fernando Mesa said that aside from the destabilization threats, the two augmentation forces will also be trained to respond to calamities and disasters./DMS