MANILA - Hounded by
corruption allegations, coup attempts and dissatisfaction
and defection within her own party ranks,
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's
political troubles have apparently been compounded by
a foiled attempt on her life by
Islamic rebels.
Brigadier General Romeo
Prestoza, head of Arroyo's security detail, said
the president had been targeted by the purportedly
al-Qaeda-influenced militant group Abu Sayyaf,
which Philippine forces are combating on the
country's southern Mindanao island with the
assistance of US military advisers. The security
official said the alleged plot was uncovered last
week and apparently included plans to assassinate
the national leader in a sniper
attack.
The official
also said the rebel group planned to bomb unnamed
foreign embassies situated in the capital. The
announcement forced Arroyo into lock-down mode
due to fears over her personal security. That
included the abrupt cancelation of her planned
visit over the weekend to the Philippines Military
Academy in provincial Baguio City, where the
president is known to spend holidays.
It
remains unclear if security officials planned to
declare a state of emergency or crack down on
planned anti-government rallies over the alleged
plot, similar to the government's reaction to an
alleged coup attempt in February 2006.
Opposition critics have questioned the
timing of the announcement of the alleged plot,
which conveniently coincided with a planned mass
anti-government rally on Friday in the capital's
financial district. The gathering was expected to
call for Arroyo's resignation on recent corruption
allegations.
Anti-government forces have
in recent weeks held daily protests around Manila,
where demonstrators have called on the people to
rise up and oust what they consider to be an
increasingly corrupt administration. The military,
meanwhile, had earlier announced that security
forces were on "high alert" over alleged communist
rebel plans to infiltrate the protests. Apart from
fighting Islamic secessionist groups, the
Philippine military is also locked in provincial
battles with the communist rebel group, the New
People's Army.
The alleged plot notably
failed to make headline news in Manila, with even
the pro-government daily newspapers keeping the
story off the front page. Adel Tamano, spokesman
for the so-called "united opposition", cautioned
that the security forces "should not use the bogey
of terrorism or destabilization to disrupt the
people's right to peaceful assembly".
Even
the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front, with
which the military has recently exchanged gunfire
and which the government has accused of having
secret links to Abu Sayyaf, denied any involvement
in the alleged plot. A spokesman for the rebel
group said it considered the allegations
tantamount to a provocation and that the charges
had the potential to jeopardize their tentative
peace negotiations with the government.
Meanwhile, opposition momentum against
Arroyo's government is arguably at its strongest
since she first assumed office in 2001. Following
recent democratic elections, the influential
Senate is now controlled by the opposition and
even long-time House of Representatives speaker
Jose de Venetia, a former staunch Arroyo ally,
has now become one of her loudest critics.
The influential Catholic Church is also
mobilizing support among its faithful to demand
Arroyo's resignation over fresh claims that her
husband and a close political ally solicited
millions of dollars worth of kickbacks from a
US$329 million broadband infrastructure deal with
China's state-run telecommunications conglomerate,
ZTE Corp, which has since been canceled amid
the controversy.
Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr,
head of the Philippine Forest Corp, a
wholly government-owned and controlled corporation
with apparent inside knowledge of the canceled
deal, has accused former election commissioner and
Arroyo ally Benjamin Abalos and Arroyo's husband,
Miguel Arroyo, of demanding a $130 million kickback
on the proposed ZTE deal.
Both have
strenuously denied the allegations, and Lozada,
after several bizarre twists and turns, including
the issuance of a warrant for his arrest and then
allegations that he was kidnapped, has recently
re-emerged as the prosecution's star witness in
the politically charged case. Adding to the case's
murkiness, Lozada himself currently stands accused
by critics of dispensing contracts without
competitive bidding for a recent state
biofuel-related project.
Whether the assassination plot against Arroyo is
real or imagined may never be known. Abu
Sayyaf has recently been routed on the battlefield
by the Philippine military and in the past has
taken its desperate fight to Manila, including a
bombing of a passenger ferry that killed 116 people in
2004. There is also the possibility that the
assassination attempt, if authentic, could have
originated from inside the ranks of the military
itself.
The military has been implicated
of complicity in several of the extrajudicial
killings that have been reported across the
country. Arroyo-backed and United Nations-led
investigations have uncovered damning evidence
against certain senior ranking officers who could
one day stand trial on charges of crimes against
humanity. Factional disgruntlement inside the
military towards Arroyo's administration was on
prominent display last November when a senator and
group of 30 military officers farcically attempted
- and failed - to launch a coup from a Manila
luxury hotel.
What is more clear is that
Arroyo's government has a well-worn history of
obfuscation and subterfuge when her administration
is under threat, including during the course of
two failed impeachment motions against her,
including allegations of vote-rigging in the 2004
election she narrowly won. This is why this week's
revelations of an alleged al-Qaeda-inspired
assassination attempt against Arroyo have so far
failed to capture the popular imagination or
national headlines.
Joel D Adriano
is an independent consultant and award-winning
freelance journalist. He was a sub-editor for the
business section of The Manila Times and writes
for Asean BizTimes, Entrepreneur Philippines,
Masigasig and People's Tonight.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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