3 alleged coup plotters ask court to quash information against them

MANILA, Philippines - Three former military colonels accused to plotting to overthrow the Arroyo government have asked the Quezon City regional trial court to quash the information filed against them. In a motion to quash and to suppress evidence filed before the sala of QCRTC Branch 92 Presiding Judge Samuel Gaerlan, the former military colonels – Oscar Mapalo, Ernie Amboy and Cesar dela Peña – claimed the complaint filed against them failed to charge them with a specific offense. They stressed that it is very clear that what they allegedly proposed is to finance or invest in their alleged plan of staging a coup d’ etat, and not to propose to commit coup d’etat, which is a violation of Article 136 of the Revised Penal Code. “There is a big difference between proposal to commit coup d’etat and proposal to finance or invest in a coup d etat,” the accused said in their motion. The accused added that as of date, there is no crime defined and punished by the Revised Penal Code denominated as proposal to finance in a coup d’ etat. The accused also asked the court to suppress all evidence that will be offered against them since they were obtained through an illegal arrest and thus inadmissible under present laws and jurisprudence. Records showed that the prosecution used the recorded conversation of Joanne Marie Laurilla and the accused as evidence in filing the case against them. Laurilla is the assistant of Motonori Sakuma, whom the accused allegedly tried to convince to finance the alleged coup. The recorded conversation between Laurilla and the accused allegedly discussed about the latter’s request to Laurilla to convince her boss to finance the planned uprising. The accused argued that their conversation with Laurilla was strictly done in private, and that they gave no permission to Laurilla to let any other person listen to it. “It should be pointed that the complainant and/or the police officers did not secure any court order to tape or overhear said private conversation prior to said entrapment operations,” the accused added. Meanwhile, in a separate motion to quash, former Police Superintendent Rafael Cardeño, also asked the court to quash the information against him since the complaint affidavit of lawyer Raymond Fortun and the sworn statement of Laurilla failed to specify or mention his specific participation in committing the crime of proposal to commit a coup d’ etat. Aside from Amboy, Dela Peña, Mapalo and Cardeño, also charged was former assemblyman Homobono Adaza, who was in the company of the four former security officers when they were arrested in Holiday Inn hotel in Quezon City early this month. Operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) conducted the entrapment operation based on the complaint of Fortun who claimed that the group of Adaza made proposal to his client, Sakuma, to finance coup d’etat. The court, on the other hand, is set to arraign the accused and to hear the merits of the motions on Aug. 4 at 8:30 a.m. - GMANews.TV