Military vice-chief of staff Lieutenant General Rodolfo Garcia said their names were found on a computer diskette containing an alleged list of those behind the short-lived military mutiny.

More than 300 renegade soldiers occupied part of the financial district of Makati on July 27 as part of the alleged coup attempt but the mutiny collapsed within 24 hours after failing to get wider support.

At least 359 soldiers allegedly involved in the mutiny are now detained, with many facing charges in both civilian and military courts for which they could get life imprisonment.

"The information received (was) that there are more than 100 (names) who were found at a diskette (but) who were not present there (at the mutiny), who could still be at large," Garcia said said in an interview with ABS-CBN television.

"We went on to track down these names, lifted from the diskettes and found that many of them remain in their respective units and they are now the subject of continuing dialogue with their commanders and are being asked about the (July 27) incident," he said.

"They were quiet but they sympathize with the group. They are listed as members" of the mutinous faction, he added.

Garcia said the rebel soldiers' movement was led by "junior officers" mostly ranked as captains or lower.

"They tried to recruit some majors but these majors did not join," he remarked.

"This all leads to the involvement of some others outside the military organization who were actually pulling the strings," Garcia said, refusing to divulge the names of the masterminds.

Asked if the masterminds were former military officers, Garcia cryptically replied, "could be."

Officials have accused opposition Senator Gregorio Honasan, an ex-army colonel involved in coup attempts in the 1980s, as being one of the backers of the latest failed mutiny. Honasan has denied this but has gone into hiding.

Although the government says it has nabbed most of the mutineers, it has warned that others involved in the plot, both civilians and military, are still at large and warned that the danger has not passed.

The government says the mutiny was part of a larger plot not only to unseat Arroyo but also to possibly assassinate the president and replace her with a 15-man junta.

Arroyo has said she would push for the maximum penalty for rebel soldiers who carried out the alleged coup attempt.

WAR.WIRE