Arroyo said she was for "total justice based on due process" as officials said dozens more rebel soldiers and civilian conspirators involved in the plot would be prosecuted.

"The secondary aim of the mutineers if they did not succeed in toppling the government is to weaken national leadership," Arroyo said in a statement.

"We shall prove them wrong. We shall seek the maximum penalty for those who planned, led and executed this misadventure," she said.

Senior figures in the alleged plot could face life imprisonment if found guilty.

Thirty-eight more soldiers would be charged with rebellion in civilian courts, in addition to 321 colleagues indicted earlier for their brief takeover of a section of the Makati financial district on July 27, National Bureau of Investigation chief Reynaldo Wycoco said.

"Apparently when they (military authorities) conducted a headcount and processing of the soldiers, there were 38 others who were missed out," Wycoco said on ABS-CBN television.

The mutiny swiftly fizzled out after failing to rally wider support, but the government maintains it was part of a larger plot allegedly led by opposition Senator Gregorio Honasan to unseat and possibly assassinate President Arroyo and replace her with a 15-member junta.

It brought the total of soldiers detained for the mutiny to 359.

The military's inspector general on Wednesday recommended separate court-martial proceedings against 45 military officers involved in the siege.

The soldiers face life in prison if convicted in either the civilian or military courts.

Prosecutors have also filed criminal complaints for rebellion against Honasan, who has gone into hiding, as well as a former member of cabinet of detained former president Joseph Estrada.

Honasan is a former army colonel who in the 1980s led several bloody coup attempts against government.

Government is to lodge late Thursday similar complaints before state prosecutors against some civilians "who organized the people who are supposed to have gone to the coup site," interior undersecretary Agnes Devanadera said.

Under Philippine law, state prosecutors are required to investigate criminal complaints and decide whether to take the case to court based on the evidence presented by both the complainant and the suspect.

Meanwhile, the armed forces said five alleged ringleaders of the failed coup would be allowed to appear before a congressional inquiry on Friday, military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Lucero said.

Security arrangements have been made to transport the five junior officers to the Senate amid reports that fellow conspirators could try to harm them, he said.

"Appropriate and reasonable security measures will be adopted to ensure the safety of the five officers," he said.

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