Top general denies planning coup

Press, 23 June 1986, Page 10

Top general denies planning coup

NZPA-AP Manila General Fidel Ramos, who helped lead a soldiers’ revolt against the Marcos regime four months ago, dismissed widespread speculation at the week-end that the military was readying a repeat against the new government of Corazon Aquino. “We do not have that kind of background,” General Ramos said. In an interview he carefully skirted such sensitive political issues

as differences in Mrs Aquino’s Administration over the future of American military bases in the Philippines and over peace overtures to the country’s Communist rebels. But he did issue a warning against “termites” — Communist infiltrators — trying to “bore” into the Philippines’ Government. General Ramos and the Defence Minister, Mr Juan Ponce Enrile, led a

military revolt, backed by hundreds of thousands of Philippine civilians, after Ferdinand Marcos tried, to gain re-election as President through vote fraud in February. The almost-bloodless coup drove Mr Marcos from the country and installed Mrs Aquino as president. General Ramos, formerly deputy chief, was named Chief of Staff, taking command of the Government’s 17-year-old campaign

against the communist New People’s Army. A series of developments last week prompted rumours of a new coup. Mr Enrile took a public stand favouring long-term retention of American military bases, in contrast to Mrs Aquino’s neutrality on the issue. An unconfirmed Philippines press report said the staunchly antiCommunist Mr Enrile was about to be ousted

from Mrs Aquino’s Cabinet, and reports persisted that the military was unhappy with a “soft” Government attitude towards the Communist guerrillas. Mr Enrile and Mrs Aquino discounted the rumours; he blamed the Communists for them and she Mr Marcos. General Ramos said the two main American installations in the Philippines — Subic naval base and Clark Air Base — are important

for preserving strategic stability in the region. But he would not, as Mr Enrile has done, endorse keeping the bases beyond 1991, when the United States-Phillppine bases agreement expires. “We are leaving tnis to the political leadership to decide, and the President has made it clear she is keeping her options open,” he said. Mrs Aquino says she will hold a national plebiscite on the matter.