AFP in custody of another ‘Magdalo’ mutineer

An Army intelligence officer with ties to the mutinous "Magdalo" group of officers and soldiers has been detained and is now under interrogation by military intelligence, according to a lawyer.

Capt. Fermin Mabulo was taken from the compound of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City and brought to the headquarters of the army’s Intelligence Service Group at Fort Bonifacio in Makati City at about 9:30 p.m. last Saturday, said attorney Argee Guevarra, one of the lawyers representing the mutineers.

Guevarra said Mabulo knows the extent of the alleged corruption in the military and might be silenced. "This guy is a material witness to the graft and corruption in the military," he said.

In a statement he released through Guevarra, Mabulo said he joined the Magdalo group to make a "non-violent stand" against corruption in the military.

Some of the mutineers were Mabulo’s classmates at the Philippine Military Academy in 1995.

"He was arrested because they said they had information linking him to the mutiny," Mabulo’s wife, Michelle, told The STAR.

"They told me that my husband had a participation in the mutiny but he was not at Oakwood," the condominium in Makati City which the mutineers took over on July 27.

Her husband’s car was searched and his mobile phone confiscated.

Military sources said Mabulo was seen in a videotaped statement in which the mutinous officers declared their reasons for staging the mutiny.

Intelligence agents got hold of the video hours before the mutineers took over Oakwood Premier, the sources said.

Guevarra suspects the military "could be planning to use (Mabulo) as a sacrificial lamb for a particular scenario" that might involve killing him. He did not elaborate.

Michelle said she feared for her husband’s safety after being informed that Mabulo would soon be transferred to Camp Servillano Aquino, headquarters of the military’s Northern Luzon Command in Tarlac province, for a still unknown reason.

"They told me that I could still go there and visit him. This means that he would be detained there," she said.

Army spokesman Lt. Col. Joselito Kakilala said he was unaware of Mabulo’s transfer to Fort Bonifacio.