By Ronron
February 28, 2008
Government security forces are ready to secure the rally today (Friday) in Makati City by various groups to call for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are already on red alert status, and their forces will be securing the inter-faith rally, as well as key areas in the capital, officials said.
On Thursday noon, policemen from Region 5 arrived at the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City to form part of the 5,000-strong Task Force Manila Shield that was activated for today’s activity.
PNP chief Gen. Avelino Razon, Jr. said 3,500 troops from Police Regional Offices 1 to 5 will arrive in Manila, while 1,500 others will come from the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO).
The AFP National Capital Region Command (NCRCOM), for its part, will put on standby some 1,500 “maneuverable force” in case the NCRPO will request for augmentation. The battalion-size force will stay at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.
Officials said the inter-faith rally will begin at 5pm and end at 8pm. Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay said at least 50,000 will participate in the activity, quite higher than the 10,000 estimate of Razon.
Aside from Makati City, the task force will also secure Mendiola in Manila City, which the easiest gateway to Malacanang Palace, and EDSA Shrine in Mandaluyong City, which has been the staging point of both the 1986 and 2001 People Power Revolutions.
Manila Police District (MPD) head Chief Supt. Roberto Rosales and Eastern Police District (EPD) head Chief Supt. Nilo dela Cruz said that although there are no scheduled rallies at Mendiola and the EDSA Shrine, respectively, they will deploy troops there.
Rosales said there will be 800 policemen at Mendiola, while there will be about 300 at the EDSA Shrine, said dela Cruz.
“There will be a deployment because we don’t want to be caught flat-footed,” Rosales said.
Quezon City Police District chief Sr. Supt. Magtanggol Gatdula said he will also put on alert his troops for today’s activity, even if there are no planned rallies in his area of responsibility.
Razon assured that people from the provinces who want to join the rally at Makati City will not be prevented if no law is violated.
“We will not stop them. In fact, I have been saying that we will allow protest actions because we respect the rights of the citizens to hold rally and demonstrations, so long as these are orderly and within the bounds of the law,” he said.
Asked if they will monitor seditious or rebellious statements during the rally, the PNP chief said they will leave it to the Department of Justice (DOJ) to determine that.
Razon disclosed that while there are intelligence reports that communist rebels and Moslem terrorists will penetrate the mass gathering, these remain not validated and unverified.
AFP National Capital Region Command (NCRCOM) chief Maj. Gen. Fernando Mesa said there are also no threats coming from rightists as he described the influence of Army Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and the Magdalo Group to be dead already.
Mesa said he is certain that no member of the military will join the rally.
Like Razon, he appealed to the rally participants, especially the organizers, to police their own ranks for possible infiltrators.
“We foresee that the mass actions will be peaceful and orderly,” Razon said.
Among the measures already taken by the PNP is the week-long suspension of the permit-to-carry-firearms-outside-of-residence to control the movement of firearms, which began last Monday.
Meanwhile, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) warned that today’s rally may be marred with rains due to the prevailing tail end of cold front.
“It will be rainy… We will still experience cloudy weather. There will still be chances of rains for as long as the tail end of cold front affects us,” PAGASA Weather Branch chief Nathaniel Cruz said.
He denied that there are cloud-seeding operations being conducted to induce rains to discourage protesters from joining the mass actions.
Cruz said the prevailing bad weather is more than enough reason not to allow airplanes to fly for cloud-seeding operations.
The Arroyo government is being accused of having a hand in the anomalous national broadband network project deal with ZTE Corporation./DMS
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