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President Gloria Arroyo moved swiftly to consolidate control two days after the rebellion collapsed, rallying the top brass and creating a commission to look into its root causes.
She called for reconciliation within the military but also stressed that those who carried out the mutiny must be punished and their alleged sponsors tracked down.
"The resort to destabilization can only be the handiwork of the most desperate groups that have completely lost their moral compass," Arroyo said in her first meeting with the armed forces leaders since the mutiny.
Official sources said the military intelligence service on Tuesday arrested Navy officer Antonio Trillanes, the spokesman of the military rebels who had been confined to barracks with nearly 300 of his fellow officers and men following their surrender late Sunday.
Four other rebel officers were also taken to the intelligence group compound, according to opposition Senator Gregorio Honasan.
Court-martial proceedings were being prepared against the officers, military spokesman Colonel Daniel Lucero said. A special task force is to convene to investigate their role and determine whether they would be charged, he added.
"We will give them a fair trial, we will give them a day in court to explain their side," Lucero said.
Lieutenant Senior Grade Trillanes described the government move as treachery in an interview aired on radio shortly before military intelligence officers took him into custody.
"They have reneged on their part of the bargain," he said, claiming that during negotiations for their surrender the government had guaranteed they would not be detained.
The group had barricaded themselves in the Makati financial center for more than 20 hours, booby-trapping the area and demanding that Arroyo and other top officials step down for allegedly colluding with rebel groups and engaging in terrorism.
"This is a warning to the government: We'll have to handle this correctly, properly because not all of us have been accounted for. Otherwise it will explode on their faces again," Trillanes said.
House of Representatives deputy speaker Raul Gonzales said the detentions were necessary. "There are some people identified with them who have not been accounted for until now," he said.
Arroyo said Tuesday her government would "take all means to repair the division caused by the incident by rectifying the grievances that caused it and bringing the plotters to justice."
She said she would "move on both fronts of dialogue and just retribution."
She named Supreme Court justice Florentino Feliciano to head a committee to investigate the roots of the mutiny.
State prosecutors on Tuesday indicted for rebellion an Estrada cabinet minister in connection with the coup attempt.
Ramon Cardenas was held without bail as there was "probable cause" he had allowed his house to be used as a staging point for the rebellion, prosecutors said.
Estrada was ousted in a popular, military-backed uprising in 2001 and is being detained while facing trial for corruption. He maintains he is the legal president while denying any role in the mutiny.
Defense officials on Tuesday displayed expensive communications equipment as well as documents captured from the mutineers indicating their scheme was wider than they claimed.
"They were well-funded, they had (communications) equipment that did not come from the military so it means they had support from the outside," Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes said.
Senator Honasan on Tuesday rejected government allegations he was behind the mutiny, while insisting that the rebels' concerns were legitimate.
WAR.WIRE |