NBI probes Red October ‘plotters’

Coup d’etat raps possible vs opposition

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has started its own probe on the reported “Red October” plot to oust President Duterte.

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said the NBI, the investigative and law enforcement arm of the Department of Justice (DOJ), has been tapped to conduct a fact-finding investigation to look into information from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) that communist groups, opposition personalities and some disgruntled soldiers are conspiring to oust Duterte.

“The NBI is already gathering information on the alleged Red October plot,” Guevarra told The STAR yesterday.

Guevarra said the NBI is specifically tasked to look into the veracity of the AFP report and identify the personalities behind the reported ouster plot.

“If the NBI will be able to verify this alleged plot and identify the persons behind it, the bureau could then build up cases against them,” he said.

Guevarra said among the possible cases that can be filed against the conspirators of the supposed plot are sedition and coup d’etat. Malacañang said any attempt against the President would fizzle out for lack of public support.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque Jr. expressed confidence that any destabilization effort will not prosper, noting the AFP and the President himself have already uncovered the Red October plot.

Roque said he has 100 percent trust in the intelligence information received by the military regarding the ouster moves.

“However, I also am sure a hundred percent that this plot will not succeed because of the overwhelming support given to the President by the people when he was elected as president, and when he is now ruling as president,” he said.

Though the political opposition is allegedly one of the conspirators, Roque has cleared Vice President Leni Robredo of involvement in the supposed remove-Duterte plot. Robredo heads the unified opposition.

Robredo on Tuesday slammed the attempts to link her and opposition figures to the so-called Red October.

She said the move to silence the opposition was a prelude to establishing a regime of corruption, abuse and dictatorship.

For former president and now Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Duterte’s revelation of the Red October plot is believable.

“Let me just say, again going from my experience as president, the President usually has access to information that not all of us have access to. So if the President believes that there is a threat, he is working from good information. So we should believe whatever (he says),” Arroyo said.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson also believes Duterte has access to validated intelligence information so he understands his frustration over reports that some officers are dealing with opposition groups out to oust him.

“While it may be frustrating on his part, considering how he has consistently treated the AFP upon his assumption as President, I think he is politically mature and experienced enough to understand that he cannot have absolute support of all the soldiers and officers of the AFP,” Lacson said.

He said there was nothing unusual with some officers disgruntled with the administration and “there will be elements who will cast their lot with the opposition for reasons that may have something to do with their career advancements.” But even if such things are not unusual, it should also not be tolerated, Lacson said.

“That should not worry him at all because he has the overwhelming support of the vast majority of the country’s armed services, the AFP and the PNP (Philippine National Police),” Lacson said.

He said he expects the AFP leadership to be conducting a “loyalty check” or conducting counter-intelligence operations.

Sen. Gregorio Honasan, a former rebel officer himself, said the AFP would likely “stay at the center” of the issue.

“Soldiers are mandated to implement policy, not to interpret it. Interpretation of policy is a function of political leadership. Civilian supremacy over military,” he stressed.

Honasan, one of the key players in the 1986 EDSA Revolution, said he was not comfortable talking of destabilization moves which only promotes intrigue and disunity among the people.

“What would be the message? We should not trust each other? We should not trust the institutions? What do we want to do? To bring it out again to the streets, which is a bad habit in developing our democracy,” Honasan said.

Red October

The President has claimed that the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army, the opposition Liberal Party and the Magdalo group of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV have conspired to oust him.

The AFP has informed Duterte that the ouster plan was to be launched last Sept. 21 but that it did not materialize. It is supposed to be mounted again next month, thus the label, “Red October.”

Brig. Gen. Antonio Parlade, AFP deputy chief of staff for operations, earlier said Sison was orchestrating the ouster plot against Duterte.

“There will still be a plan this coming October. They call it Red October. That is the month of international celebrations for communism, Marxism and IP (indigenous peoples),” Parlade said.

Parlade also linked the opposition coalition Tindig Pilipinas with the communist leaders spearheading the ouster plot. He bared the group withdrew after realizing that communist leaders were behind the move.

Robredo, the LP, Trillanes and Magdalo have all denied involvement in any plot to oust Duterte. Trillanes and Magdalo said they could not conspire with communist rebels who continue to kill soldiers.

Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano, a former Marine captain, denied that the party-list group is involved in the alleged ouster move.

He said soldiers, whether retired, inactive or on active duty, would never conspire with communists, whom they consider their enemies.

Parlade claimed the AFP squared up on the issue, making opposition personalities lie low and back out of the alliance for fear of being aligned with communists.

Asked who is spearheading the plan, Parlade mentioned Sison and the CPP’s central committee, Rey Casambre and Satur Ocampo, “whose plans should be exposed considering that opposition personalities did not know who was behind the moves.”

Parlade insisted the previously reported Sept. 21 plan to oust Duterte was real, if not a prelude or at least aimed at destabilizing his administration.

Dubious information

LP chairman Sen. Francis Pangilinan said whoever is giving the President “false and manufactured” intelligence reports must be fired.

“They should be giving him accurate information that he needs to know rather than dubious information that they think he would like to hear. Billions are spent on intelligence funds for fabricated information,” Pangilinan said in a statement.

Pangilinan said during the Marcos regime, the late strongman made the same accusations against the LP, that there was collusion with the communists to justify martial law.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon described the alleged destabilization plot as “an old familiar tune and it sounds like a broken record.”

“This opposition-communist ‘Red October’ destabilization plot is a discredited fantasy tale taken from a Tom Clancy thriller and being peddled by those who wish to undermine our democracy to justify the declaration of a so-called revolutionary government,” Drilon said.

Drilon was apparently referring to Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October” spy novel on how to take an entire Soviet submarine without the crew knowing that their officers had already defected.

Alejano, for his part, urged the President not to lump those in the political opposition with communists. “When one expresses dissent, it does not automatically make him a communist,” he said.

Groups identified with the left like Makabayan denied it is plotting to oust Duterte.

Makabayan accused the military of “concocting a crackdown on progressive and opposition forces.”

“The so-called Red October plot is a wild concoction by a paranoid military,” the group said.

The group warned the public that it is also possible Duterte is laying the groundwork for a wider declaration of martial law.

The CPP has dismissed the October plot as a “figment of Duterte’s imagination.”

The communist National Democratic Front also described the Red October ouster plot as “fiction.”