Laarni says she’s not capable of launching coup vs Gloria

A mistress of ousted President Joseph Estrada said she is not capable of participating in a coup d’etat against President Arroyo.

In an interview over the television talk show Pipol hosted by Ces Drilon Wednesday night, former starlet Laarni Enriquez said she is a domesticated person who prefers to spend time with her children.

Enriquez faces rebellion charges before the Department of Justice for her alleged involvement in the failed July 27 mutiny staged by disgruntled junior officers and enlisted men of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in Makati City’s commercial and business district.

A police raid on Enriquez’s residence in Mandaluyong City on the night of the failed mutiny yielded weapons, munitions, soldiers’ identification cards, food stocks and red flags and armbands emblazoned with white suns and the Alibata symbol used by the Katipunan’s Magdalo faction.

The mutineers occupied the posh Oakwood Premier Ayala Center luxury apartment adjacent to the Glorietta shopping complex and wired the area with explosives during the 22-hour standoff. They called themselves the Magdalo group, after the minority Katipunan faction led by Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo and wore red armbands similar to those found in Enriquez’s Mandaluyong house, located on No. 461 J.B. Vargas st., Barangay Bagong Silang.

The house was allegedly used as a "staging point" for the failed mutiny.

Enriquez has vowed to fight the charges, but added that there is nothing she can do if the authorities arrest and jail her. "Even if they need to jail me, I cannot do anything about it. If they were able to do that to President Estrada, what more to me, to my friends, even you?"

"I admitted (owning the house) from the very first time that my name was dragged into the mutiny," Enriquez said. "But we have side contracts. Will I open the door of my house because someone who wants to stage a coup wants to use it? What is the logical explanation for that?"

Worse than the accusation that she supported the mutinous soldiers by letting them use her house is the betrayal of her friend, Liezl Magpoc.

But, Enriquez said, Magpoc may have had a good reason for her actions. "Why won’t (Magpoc) turn her back on me when she was threatened with plunder charges?"

Magpoc identified Enriquez as the real owner of the house, which had been put in Magpoc’s name to circumvent legal difficulties in the wake of the Estrada plunder trial.

Magpoc denied claims she had been coerced into helping authorities link Enriquez to the failed rebellion and she said Enriquez called her asking her to delay submission of her affidavit.

"I did not exercise any act of ownership over the property, neither did I come into possession nor control of the property at any time," Magpoc said in a statement.

Enriquez said she is the most "misunderstood" of the women in Estrada’s life. "They judged me, but I don’t have any regrets. They cannot make me happy. It’s a choice — all that happened to me is a big lesson, even if I’m happy or not... All of (these things) are part of life."

During the Estrada impeachment trial at the Senate, Enriquez’s name cropped up when she was identified as the owner of the luxurious "Boracay mansion" in New Manila, Quezon City.

The mansion, Enriquez said, is not really hers. "I didn’t own it. But we (she and her children) really lived there for a while," during which time her "old house," which was eight years old, was being rewired.

The Boracay mansion "was lent to us by a friend," Enriquez said, though she did not identify the friend.

Despite the luxurious interior, central air-conditioning and swimming pool lined with sand taken from the posh resort island that is the mansion’s namesake, it could not really be considered a home, Enriquez said.

"Life has not been that convenient for us," she said, "because we had to return back and forth from our house to the Boracay mansion to get our clothes."

Enriquez said it is up to the case prosecutors to prove their allegations of her involvement in the failed July 27 mutiny in court.