Manila Probes Alleged Plot to Kill Aquino, Tightens Airport Security

MANILA —  Philippine military authorities are investigating an alleged plot to assassinate President Corazon Aquino during her victory rally last month, top military and government officials said Tuesday.

The military also announced that it has stepped up security at the nation’s major airports amid intelligence reports that forces loyal to deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos may attempt to smuggle arms or men into the country in an effort to destabilize Aquino’s six-week-old government.

Authorities said the investigation into a possible assassination plot began Monday night when investigators from Aquino’s presidential guard battalion took into custody a 39-year-old man from Aquino’s home province of Tarlac.

The man reportedly confessed to police that he had been paid 500,000 pesos, about $25,000, to shoot the new president as she appeared before a million supporters during a March 2 “thanksgiving rally,” according to a senior police superintendent.

Confirmed by Official

Aquino, who rose to power after a civilian and military rebellion drove Marcos into exile five days before the rally, offered no comment on the alleged plot Tuesday. Justice Minister Neptali Gonzales, however, confirmed the investigation Tuesday morning during a building dedication ceremony in which Aquino made one of her rare public appearances amid tight military security.

Gonzales added that the military is trying to determine whether the alleged assassin is telling the truth about his role in the plot or simply seeking publicity.

According to Gonzales and top police officials, the suspect, Alberto Mercado, also known as Romualdo Mercado, was arrested on unrelated theft charges Saturday at a boarding house in Manila’s tourist district of Ermita. When police searched Mercado’s room, they found “several papers which aroused our suspicion about an assassination plot,” the police superintendent, Gen. Narciso Cabrerra, said. He declined to say what the papers contained.

Police also found a press pass issued to Mercado by Aquino’s media affairs bureau, which has been criticized by the military in the past for laxity in handing out the passes. Mercado is not a journalist, police said, but the pass would have admitted him to the stage area during the rally last month.

‘Lost His Nerve’

Under questioning, Mercado reportedly told investigators he had been hired by a Philippine general to shoot Aquino and that he had gotten to within a few feet of her as she made her way to the stage, but “he says he lost his nerve,” Gonzales added.

Gonzales did not name the general, but, in the wake of the 72-hour rebellion that culminated in Marcos’ flight Feb. 25, Aquino’s military leaders ordered several generals who had remained loyal to Marcos placed under house arrest.

Government troops also have confiscated thousands of machine guns, rifles and pistols and millions of rounds of ammunition from the rural haciendas and villas of the former president’s supporters and military leaders, some of whom fled with him to Hawaii.

A military spokesman said Tuesday that the order doubling security forces at Manila International Airport and other major domestic airports, among them the one in Marcos’ home province of Ilocos Norte, was aimed at preventing loyalist forces from returning to the Philippines.

Airport Workers Probed

The military also stripped the civilian airport authority that runs Manila International Airport of its power to issue security passes to guards, and it began investigating the backgrounds of all employees in key positions at the airport.

It was at that airport in August, 1983, that Aquino’s husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., was assassinated while surrounded by nearly 2,000 government soldiers and airport security guards. A senior prosecutor in that case told reporters Tuesday that Marcos had exerted influence on prosecutors and judges who last year acquitted 25 soldiers charged with Aquino’s killing, among them Marcos’ military chief of staff, Gen. Fabian C. Ver.

“There’s no reason for me anymore to still hide details,” said Manuel Herrera, whom Marcos had appointed as deputy prosecutor in the case. “Last year, my telephones were all tapped. People were making surveillance of me. But I think these are part of the game.”

Aquino’s government has said that it intends to reopen the investigation into her husband’s slaying and may retry the defendants if new evidence surfaces.

Meanwhile, in the town of San Manuel, Tarlac province, former governor Federico Peralta, 58, a Marcos ally, was stabbed to death in bed by masked assailants who barged into his home, according to the Philippine News Agency.

Peralta was one of eight former officials named on Tuesday by Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile as targets for liquidation by terrorists, the agency said. Enrile ordered Tarlac’s acting police chief, Brig. Gen. Renato de Villa, to protect the seven others.

The murdered former governor and the other seven men were reputed henchmen of Aquino’s estranged cousin, Eduardo Cojuangco, who fled the country with Marcos on Feb. 25.