Plot to spring rebel soldiers from detention unverified

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang on Tuesday admitted that the supposed plot to spring detained military officers involved in attempts to overthrow the Arroyo government is still “raw information". “Such a report is raw information. There is no validation yet. Considering the sensitivity of the report, I think there is a need to verify it," Cabinet Secretary Silvestre Bello III said in a press briefing after the Cabinet meeting in Tacloban City, Leyte. The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) on Monday bared the alleged plot by the so-called Magdalo group, which was involved in the July 2003 Oakwood Mutiny, to free Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim, among others, from detention. PAOCC director Mariano Villafuerte said this came following the arrest of six former soldiers - four ex-Navy and two ex-Army officers - in a private shooting range in Clark Field last April 24. Among those taken into custody was Anthony Newman, a New Zealander allegedly in charge of training the former soldiers in special operations. But Bello said the information still needs to be validated first. “We have to be very cautious in acting on this raw information," he said. Trillanes, in a statement, had described the report as “absurd.", dismissing it as another one of the government’s tactics to distract the public from the controversial issue of Charter change (Cha-cha). “It has become a consistent tactic of this administration to use disinformation to distract people from its heinous plots against our people such as the ongoing Cha-cha railroading," he said. - GMANews.TV