Former air force officer joins mutiny probe commission

The commission that will investigate the failed July 27 mutiny now has seven members after President Arroyo swore in yesterday a former Air Force captain and former classmate of some of the mutineers.

Philippine Airlines pilot Roland Narciso was a member of the Philippine Military Academy’s 1995 "Marilag" class. Narciso, 30, left the military service three years ago to join PAL.

Mrs. Arroyo said the members of the fact-finding panel must come from the private sector for the commission to remain independent and its credibility intact.

Narciso is the second panel member to come from PMA class 1995 after Capt. Rex Bumanlag, who has yet to be sworn into the commission.

He was flying a Manila-San Francisco-Los Angeles flight last Sunday when some 300-odd disgruntled officers and troops occupied posh Oakwood Premier Ayala Center condominium in Makati City and occupied it for 22 hours.

The government had to ask PAL to "lend" Narciso before he could accept the appointment to the commission, headed by former Supreme Court justice Florentino Feliciano.

Also named to the commission were retired Supreme Court justice Minerva Reyes; Carolina Hernandez, political science professor at the University of the Philippines; Roman Catholic priest Fr. Joaquin Bernas, a former member of the commission that framed the country’s present constitution; and Commodore Rex Robles, a former military rebel leader.

The mutineers had accused the military leadership of selling arms to rebels from the country’s biggest separatist Muslim group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the communist New People’s Army and the Abu Sayyaf Islamic kidnap-for-ransom group.

The mutineers, who colleagues say also hold a sterling combat record, said they had come across recovered ammunition from captured rebel camps with markings "DND (Department of National Defense) Arsenal."

The mutineers also accused Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes and former Intelligence Service of the Armed Forcs chief Brig. Gen. Victor Corpus of "masterminding" bombings against civilian targets in Mindanao in a bid to declare the MILF as a terrorist group and eventually get more US funding for Mrs. Arroyo’s anti-terror campaign.

They also accused the military leadership of planning bombings in Manila in a bid to extend Mrs. Arroyo’s stay in power through martial law.

"They will do this through bombings in Metro Manila which they will blame on other groups," said Capt. Gerardo Gambala, citing the recent escape from Camp Crame police headquarters of self-confessed Indonesian terrorist Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi as "essential to this operation."

Maj. Gen. Pedro Cabuay, the military’s newly appointed intelligence chief, said the mutineers had originally planned to assassinate President Arroyo and other top officials.

Cabuay also linked a son of jailed former president Joseph Estrada, San Juan Mayor Victor "JV" Ejercito, to the mutiny.