{"id":43205,"date":"2015-02-22T22:27:42","date_gmt":"2015-02-22T14:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=43205"},"modified":"2015-02-22T22:27:42","modified_gmt":"2015-02-22T14:27:42","slug":"doj-chief-warns-coup-plotters-may-face-criminal-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/02\/22\/doj-chief-warns-coup-plotters-may-face-criminal-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"DOJ chief warns coup plotters may face criminal charges"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Justice<\/a>
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. TWITTER PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2013 Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Leila de Lima on Sunday said the coup plotters under the group called National Transformation Council (NTC) may face criminal charges for instigating military-backed people power uprising.<\/p>\n

\u201dThe NTC has carefully formulated this strategy in the false hope of propagating it legally in the mass media and among supporters without however accruing any criminal liability under the penal laws on rebellion, sedition, and coup d\u2019 etat,\u201d De Lima said in a press statement.<\/p>\n

De Lima said the coup threats that have been making the rounds recently \u201care not coup threats in the strict sense of the word.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said they are not any section from the government\u2019s security forces but disgruntled allies of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and former officials, politicians and members of the catholic clergy closely identified with the former leader.<\/p>\n

\u201dThey are known as the National Transformation Council or the NTC, to instigate or foment a military-backed people power uprising,\u201d De Lima said.<\/p>\n

\u201dThis is a false hope, since certain actions already implemented by the group, from organizing foras and conferences of supporters and sympathizers, can already be contemplated as conspiracies relating to sedition, rebellion or coup d\u2019 etat,\u201d added.<\/p>\n

De Lima identified Norberto Gonzales, defense secretary of former President Arroyo, as an active member of the NTC which have been conducting meetings since last year.<\/p>\n

\u201dAccording to Gonzales, there is nothing wrong with people power, or a change in regime through people power, which was the case with EDSA 1 and 2. This is Gonzales\u2019 doublespeak,\u201d De Lima said.<\/p>\n

\u201dEverything in this strategy is illegal and unconstitutional, except probably for the people power part if executed merely as a form of mass mobilization in the exercise of the people\u2019s freedom of assembly,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The DOJ chief said installation of the NTC as the governing body of the Republic is nothing but \u201cthe installation of a civilian-military junta.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201dThe call for the military\u2019s support for its defense and installation is nothing less than a proposal or conspiracy to commit the crime of coup d\u2019etat,\u201d De Lima said.<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cThe NTC\u2019s pronouncements and publicly declared strategy for the capture of state power through active military support to the NTC are therefore acts which already constitute conspiracy or proposal to commit rebellion and coup d\u2019 etat (Art. 136 in relation to Arts. 134 and 134-A, Revised Penal Code), conspiracy to commit sedition (Art. 141 in relation to Art. 139, RPC) or, at the very least, inciting to sedition (Art. 142, RPC), as well as illegal assemblies (Art. 146, RPC).<\/p>\n

\u201dA junta by any other sanitized name is still illegal and unconstitutional,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The DOJ chief warned that \u201cthe government will not relent in applying the full force of the law against them in order to protect the people and the State from an unconstitutional and illegal power grab.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Lima said the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police will stand behind President Benigno Aquino III \u201cno matter how the Mamasapano incident is exploited by opportunists, such as NTC, to sow discord and division among their ranks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mamasapano encounter has resulted in the killing of the 44 Special Action Force (SAF) commandos who were just carrying a mission to capture two-high profile terrorist Zulkifli Abdhir alias Marwan and Basit Usman when they encountered the combined forces of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) on January 25 in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.<\/p>\n

\u201dIt is the height of pathetic gutter politics, when the tragic loss of 44 police officers killed in the line of duty is used by disgraced pathological personalities to crawl their way back to national relevance, at the expense of the people\u2019s effort to come to terms with the complex issue of peace in Mindanao in their search for justice for the SAF44,\u201d De Lima said.<\/p>\n

\u201d The nation is still grieving, and without any sense of shame, these personalities would use the people\u2019s grief to pervert a national catharsis, serving only their own thirst and craving for absolute power by imposing upon this nation a tyranny of religious and political has-beens,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The mission dubbed \u2018Oplan Exodus\u2019 has resulted in the killing of Marwan, a notorious bomb maker who was wanted by the United States and has USD5-million bounty on his head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Leila de Lima on Sunday said the coup plotters under the group called …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,95,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ph","category-politics","mauthors-jelly-f-musico","mauthors-philippines-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}