Philippine Daily Inquirer, Oct. 16, 2005
Palparan links execs to anti-Arroyo plot
By Anselmo Roque and Tonette Orejas
FORT MAGSAYSAY, NUEVA ECIJA - Documents seized recently from a New People's Army camp in Aurora province not only uncovered evidence of planned bombings and destabilization and ouster plots against President Macapagal-Arroyo but also linked some government officials to the alleged plots.
This was revealed by Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr., commander of the Army's 7th Infantry Division, at a discussion with correspondents of the Inquirer's Northern Luzon Bureau late Friday.
At the meeting, Palparan read aloud from letters allegedly left by the retreating communist rebels which he said gave evidence of the alleged plots.
The guerrilla camp, located at Sitio Alasanay in Barangay Dimanayat, San Luis, Aurora, was overrun by soldiers after an encounter on Sept. 27 and 28.
According to Lt. Col. Ricardo Garcia, the 702nd Infantry Brigade commander, the camp not only had value for the NPA rebels in the province and in Central Luzon.
"Our information showed that it is a national training ground in the country for NPAs [who are deployed] for special operations," Garcia said, judging from the contents of a training manual for making land mines and bombs that was seized from the camp.
He said soldiers found several high-powered firearms, communications equipment, 363 packs of explosives and several documents, including maps and a manual for making bombs.
Palparan read from a letter, dated July 30, which gave evidence of a plot or plots against Ms Arroyo. But he declined to identify the officials and other people named in the letter, saying he would release their names as soon as he got clearance from higher authorities.
The letter appeared to be a computer print-out and bore the logo of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its military arm, the NPA.
Palparan said the letter-writer belonged to a "legal organization."
The letter was in Filipino and was addressed to Delfin Pimentel, the secretary general of the NPA's provincial party committee in Aurora, who is also the military chief of the Domingo Erlano Command in the area.
It told of a meeting with another NPA leader who suggested the immediate release of funds to buy the "explosives."
Portions of the letter instructed its recipients to speed up the making of bombs "to hasten the sowing of chaos, disunity, destruction and the ouster of Ms Arroyo from Malacaang and to bring down the US-Arroyo regime."
Palparan said the people mentioned in the letters, including the unnamed government officials, could be ordered arrested as their identities and direct participation in terror activities, destabilization plots and ouster of Ms Arroyo were "clearly indicated" in the documents.
He said another letter indicated that funds were forthcoming and training officers of the NPA unit in Aurora were ready to teach the production and use of bombs to various other NPA units.
"Ka [person with alias] and [a government official] have shown to us that the materials for the training in bomb-making and how to use these are ready. You give the go-signal when the training would start for our comrades in various guerrilla fronts," the letter said.
Lt. Col. Joselito Kakilala, commander of the 48th Infantry Battalion that captured the camp, described the seized packs of explosive powder as being similar to C-4, a common variety of military plastic explosive.
"These are not commercially available, raising the likelihood these were imported," he said.
One pack would be enough to blast a strip of road, Kakilala said.
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