Raps now being readied vs Gringo, says DILG chief

Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina Jr. said yesterday charges are now being prepared against opposition Sen. Gregorio Honasan who he earlier accused of abetting last Sunday’s failed mutiny by junior military officers.

"It’s a matter of time, we are now preparing the charges, we are now on the finishing touches," Lina told a congressional probe body investigating the mutiny.

Even after Honasan earlier denied any links to the plot, Lina charged that civilian volunteers identified with the senator had helped man roads in Makati City that allowed the rebel soldiers to take over Oakwood Premier Ayala Center, where they staged the mutiny.

He said many civilians were reported to be at standby awaiting orders to supply food to the rebel soldiers and march with their banners proclaiming Honasan as the "hope of the country."

Lina remarked that both the renegade soldiers and their civilian supporters had sought the implementation of the "National Recovery Program," a political platform previously circulated by Honasan in support of his plan to run for president next year.

"They want to bring down the government and replace it with another one that would espouse the National Recovery Program," Lina said.

He slammed Honasan for having "the temerity and the cold-bloodedness to speak before the people, denying his involvement."

During the congressional hearing, Lina accused Honasan of using the young officers to stage the mutiny for political ends.

"Together with the soldiers who will be charged with coup d’état are also civilians who conspired, confederated and collaborated with the soldiers who mutinied and who participated in the coup d’état," Lina added.

Honasan, who in the 1980s led several coup attempts as an Army colonel, earlier denied the accusations he was among those behind the uprising.

He clarified the NRP, which was supposedly adopted by Magdalo as their bible, is an open document. Honasan said the NRP was first introduced by former senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani.

Honasan pointed out that even Navy Ltsg. Antonio Trillanes IV, one of the leaders of the Magdalo group who staged the mutiny, also denied their group is a vehicle for Honasan’s presidential ambitions.

Trillanes had said the NRP is their only link to Honasan since it reflected their desire for reforms in the Armed Forces.

NRP pamphlets were distributed to kibitzers who went to watch the 22-hour standoff between government forces and Magdalo mutineers holed up in Oakwood last Sunday.

In a study made by a political science professor of the University of the Philippines (UP) which reviewed the NRP for critiquing, Dr. Clarita Carlos said the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) should instead be abolished. – With Pamela Samia, AFP