Category: Feb ’06

Update:

Esperon unremorseful of his illegal detention of 40 soldiers:On Thursday, Armed Forces Chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. indicated that the fate of the 40 enlisted men would depend on the outcome of the case against the 28 officers.

“Do you discharge the enlisted personnel when the officers have not yet even been arraigned? A good timing would be to arraign the officers first and decide what punishment would be fit for the offenses committed by the enlisted personnel, because they were simply led to doing it by some officers,” Esperon told reporters. click here for full story

Sen. Jamby Madrigal attended today’s court martial hearing and took a look at the detention facility. She was allowed only up to reception area of the conjugal quarters.

Tell truth on rigging of 2004 elections’
by Victor Reyes

Military officers linked to last year’s supposed power grab attempt dared AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. to “tell the truth” about allegations that the military helped rig the May 2004 polls to ensure President Arroyo’s victory.

by JP Lopez

Former Marines commandant Maj. Gen. Romeo Miranda is “seriously ill” and has to be confined at the AFP Medical Center in Quezon City for about a week, Sen. Rodolfo Biazon said today.

Miranda, who is among 28 Army and Marines officers detained in Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal for alleged involvement in last year’s failed power grab attempt, was brought to the hospital Thursday morning for a checkup, said Biazon, chairman of the committee and national defense who is set to visit the officers in the camp on Monday.

“Instead of only three days of executive examination, the authorities in V. Luna told me (yesterday morning) that it may require more than three days… meaning baka meron ngang indication na kailangan tingnang mabuti,” Biazon told reporters.

Update: Brig. Gen. Renato Miranda was brought to V. Luna Hospital in Quezon City this afternoon (Thurs, Oct. 4) for general check up.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon will visit the detainees in Tanay on Monday.

by Victor Reyes

Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. has approved an “annual physical examination” for former Marines commandant Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda, an alleged leader of the last year’s failed power grab, a military spokesman said yesterday.

The approval was given last Monday, the same day Esperon said Miranda was not entitled to an “executive checkup” because he is a “destabilizer.”

by Victor Reyes

Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda, former Marines commandant who is detained for allegedly leading a failed power grab last year, is not entitled to an executive checkup because he is a destabilizer, AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said yesterday.

“If they are asking for an executive check, what I know is that an executive checkup is a privilege for those who are not resorting to violence,” Esperon said.

“For example, if you are not doing something illegal, you can have an executive checkup. But if you are a destabilizer, you are detained, why then are you asking for an executive checkup? We (military leadership) are not the ones who are at fault why you are being detained,” Esperon also said.

The families of detained officers in Camp Capinpin, Tanay unveiled their own efforts to bring out the truth behind the incarceration of the officers whose sterling records put to shame that of their jailors.

Photos of yesterday’s hearing in Camp Capinpin in Tanay. Captions below. Take note of the barbed wire that surrounds the court building. Akala mo Myanmar!

By Victor Reyes

Officers linked to last year’s failed power grab yesterday said the recent reports of attempts to destabilize the Arroyo government were concocted by the military leadership to justify the coup rumors they themselves floated.

In a statement, the officers said the revelation of Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. about the supposed plan is nothing but a psychological strategy to suppress what they said were the “voices of truth.”