Lastimoso gets LTO’s top post

President Arroyo formally appointed yesterday former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Roberto Lastimoso as head of the Land Transportation Office (LTO).

Lastimoso replaces controversial retired Army Brig. Gen. Edgardo Abenina who was recently linked to a series of coup attempts against the Arroyo administration.

Abenina refused to comment on his replacement but LTO spokesman Col. Gene Tosino said Lastimoso’s appointment did not come as a surprise to Abenina.

"He (Abenina) has been expecting that. He resigned from the post last year and he remained at the LTO only because he was waiting for President Arroyo to name his replacement," Tosino added.

Abenina fell from the graces of Malacañang for allegedly tolerating his aide, police Superintendent Rafael Cardeno, in publicly criticizing the administration.

Cardeno, who also served as operations chief of LTO, was implicated in an alleged coup plot being hatched by the military rightist group Young Officers’ Union, composed of junior police and military officers.

Cardeno was eventually transferred to Western Visayas, prompting Abenina to criticize Malacañang.

"It is like punishing someone for a crime that has not yet been committed. It is unjust and uncalled for," Abenina told The STAR in an earlier interview.

But Lastimoso’s appointment appeared to violate the one-year ban of the Commission on Elections on the appointment to government posts of those who ran and lost in the elections. Lastimoso ran for congressman under the party-list sytem in the May 2001 elections.

Lastimoso was booted out of the PNP a few months after Joseph Estrada took over the presidency in 1998 amid an acrimonious word war against Estrada protégé Deputy Director General Panfilo Lacson, head of the now defunct Presidential Anti-0rganized Crime Task Force.

Lacson subsequently took over the PNP reins.

The retired PNP chief was also presented as a prosecution witness in the aborted impeachment trial of Estrada.

He testified that Estrada asked him to slow down on the campaign against jueteng.

Meanwhile, Abenina lashed out at his detractors, saying their "baseless criticisms and charges" against him were the ones causing destabilization of the government.

"This is the malady of people who want to be recognized. They are the ones destabilizing the country," Abenina told reporters during a hastily called press briefing at the LTO.

He dared those linking him to the alleged coup plots and the Dec. 31 gunslaying of discharged Army Lt. Baron Cervantes to substantiate their accusations.

Abenina indicated that he had casually met with Cervantes who he claimed badgered him for a position at the LTO.

He said he could not think of any reason why Pastor Saycon of the Council of Philippine Affairs would link him to the coup plots.

He admitted having taken part in the coup attempts against the Aquino administration in 1987 because he believed that she was not running the government properly.

However, he denied being part of the 1989 failed uprising by the Reform the Armed Forces Movement led by cashiered Army colonel Gregorio Honasan, now a senator.

"Honasan and his colleagues like Proceso Maligalig and retired Commodore Domingo Calajate never had patriotic goals," Abenina charged.

Abenina was chairman of the Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabansa until Calajate’s group ousted him in May 2001.