Military lowers alert level as situation normalizes

By Ronron
September 17, 2007

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has lowered its alert level over the weekend as it saw the situation to have normalized following the promulgation last week of the Sandiganbayan’s decision on the plunder case of former President Joseph Estrada.

AFP Public Information Officer (PIO) Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said Monday that the alert, except for the National Capital Region Command (NCRCOM), has been lowered nationwide from red to blue effective 6am last Saturday after assessing that no more untoward incident could happen.

“We do not see any violence that could happen… We could see that everything is quite calm now,” Bacarro told reporters at Camp Aguinaldo.

NCRCOM PIO 1Lt. Garysande Mamaludin, in a separate interview, said the alert in Metro Manila may be brought down to blue level later on Monday.

But Bacarro said the military will continue monitoring the situation, especially that text messages regarding destabilization efforts continue to circulate among the ranks of the AFP.

Bacarro disclosed that the text messages that supposedly come from AFP personnel obviously intend to cause divisiveness within the military.

“They’re using issues of useless death of soldiers due to lack of logistical support, so on and so forth. That’s the basic thing. They ride on issues within the Armed Forces of the Philippines and they take advantage of this, creating an atmosphere of divisiveness within the organization,” Bacarro said.

One of the text message that Bacarro received reads: “Dear countrymen, a crisis of horrific proportion has hit our nation. No less than our Senate has called for an investigation. You, as citizens, are called upon to make a choice to decide the fate of our beleaguered nation. Make the patriotic choice now for our people, country and God. Now is the time to remove the cancer in our society. It’s time now to remove GMA and all her evil minions that cause irreparable in our country. We at AFP and PNP need you now more than ever.”

He said there are efforts now being done to identify the source of the text messages since the phone numbers come from anonymous source.

Bacarro, nevertheless, assured that no soldier will be lured into joining any anti-government movement, citing “how professional the AFP is now.”

“The soldiers are fed up with this already. Many of those I talk to who have received this kind of text message do not even waste their time reading it, more so, send it to others,” Bacarro said./DMS