Army Seals Key Manila Areas to Prevent Coup : Chief of Staff Ramos Orders Entire Military to Disregard Orders From Defense Minister Enrile

MANILA —  The Philippine military chief of staff, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, ordered field commanders to seal off all key civilian and military installations in Manila and the rest of the country early today, in an unprecedented security operation apparently aimed at preempting a planned coup d’etat against President Corazon Aquino.

Without naming Aquino’s controversial defense minister, Juan Ponce Enrile, Ramos ordered the entire military to disregard orders from Enrile’s Ministry of National Defense and his heavily armed, 700-man security force, which has been the focal point of coup rumors for the past several weeks.

Ramos cited “intelligence reports” received Saturday night that military and political forces still loyal to deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos planned to topple Aquino.

The president called an emergency Cabinet meeting this morning, but no details were released, and the threat that provoked the military operation remained unclear.

Order to Secure Facilities

Presidential Press Secretary Teodoro Benigno told reporters before the meeting that Aquino ordered the military to secure the government and church-owned radio and television stations when she heard of unusual troop movements during the night. The orders were implemented by Ramos, Benigno said.

Ramos attended the Cabinet meeting, but Enrile did not, leading to speculation that Aquino may be preparing to remove Enrile after several weeks of behind-the-scenes sniping between the two leaders.

Ramos’ orders were broadcast by several of his regional commanders and confirmed by sources in Aquino’s presidential palace. However, Ramos himself did not make the broadcast.

In a statement issued this afternoon, Ramos appealed for calm and warned his commanders that Communist rebels or criminal elements might launch “opportunistic attacks” amid the reports of a coup attempt. Ramos also explained that his order grew out of a “lengthy conference” in Manila with his major service commanders Saturday night. Enrile did not attend the conference.

Enrile has been quietly distancing himself in the past two weeks from his security group, headed by Col. Gregorio Honasan. In Ramos’ order this morning, he specifically told his commanders to disregard orders from the outspoken colonel, who has been sharply critical of Aquino’s policies.

For the first time, Ramos also declared that Enrile is no longer in the military chain of command, stating, “The Ministry of National Defense is civilian.” But Enrile’s political fate remained uncertain today, and ministry spokesmen were declining to comment on Ramos’ order.

Allied Earlier in Year

Enrile and Ramos found themselves allies early this year when they joined forces to oust Marcos and install Aquino as president. Until that point, however, Enrile had long been known as a staunch supporter of Marcos, while Ramos was regarded as a less politically prone figure.

At the heart of the planned coup, according to Ramos’ directive, was a plot by Marcos loyalists, apparently aided by dissident military factions, to reconvene the defunct National Assembly, declare invalid the Feb. 7 presidential election that led to Aquino’s taking power, install as acting president the pro-Marcos former Speaker of the Assembly and call for a new presidential election.

To avert such an attempt, Ramos ordered all of his field commanders “to secure all government centers, all seats of government and radio and television stations and communication stations.”

At least two other key Philippine cities were similarly secured by government troops. Gen. Domingo Rio, regional commander in Iloilo, a major city in the central Philippines, said the military had occupied all radio stations and public utilities in the region to guard against a planned coup in Manila. Rio, who announced the action over the radio this morning, said the action was taken on Ramos’ orders.

Similar radio announcements were made today in Davao, the principal city on the strategic, southernmost island of Mindanao. Government and military sources had announced Friday that a group of dissident military officers was planning “some sort of attack” on the island as part of a campaign to destabilize Aquino’s government.

The president’s brother-in-law, Agapito Aquino, said soldiers still loyal to Marcos are behind the plot, which, he said, would attempt to exploit divisions within the heavily armed forces of the Muslim secessionist Moro National Liberation Front.

Other signs of military dissent surfaced in the central city of Cebu on Saturday morning, when 1,500 soldiers and civilians intensely loyal to Enrile staged an anti-Communist rally inside the principal military base there.

Soldiers’ Demands

The soldiers, among them several colonels and a general, made demands similar to those outlined in Ramos’ order today--the removal of several of Aquino’s Cabinet ministers, a new presidential election next year and the reconvening of the pro-Marcos National Assembly, which was unilaterally dissolved last March by Aquino, who took power after the nation’s military and civilians rebelled against Marcos’ dictatorial rule last February.

Rumors that Marcos loyalists had taken over the modern Assembly building on the outskirts of Manila swept through the capital just after midnight Saturday, apparently triggering Aquino’s order to Ramos. A government security detail assigned there last May reported that they had been ordered on alert but that all was quiet.

On the surface, the mood throughout Manila this morning was peaceful and normal. Thousands of joggers jammed the city’s main boulevard for their usual Sunday run. Balloon salesmen hawked their wares in the downtown parks, and families began setting up blankets for picnics.

Government television was, as usual, broadcasting the “Family Rosary Crusade” and sermons from a variety of priests and pastors in a nation where 85% of the population is Roman Catholic.

Aquino was scheduled to appear this afternoon along with the Catholic prelate, Cardinal Jaime Sin, at a large Manila rally launching a church campaign against both communism and liberal capitalism.

The military’s security operation, which began before midnight and continued through this morning, followed another day of violence and killing in Manila.

Unidentified gunmen shot and killed a key Muslim leader from Mindanao in gangland fashion outside a hotel in Manila’s tourist district Saturday.

Ulbert Ulama Tugung, a supporter of Aquino who headed an autonomous Parliament in Muslim-dominated western Mindanao, was in Manila for a meeting to chart the coming campaign for the ratification of Aquino’s newly drafted national constitution.

Ulama, 47, was the third political leader assassinated in Manila in the past 10 days.

Police said his body was raked with M-16 fire and that he was killed along with an aide and the chief of the hotel’s security. They said they knew of no motive in the killing, which came in the wake of similar gangland-style murders of top labor leader Rolando Olalia on Nov. 13 and of pro-Enrile politician David Puzon last Wednesday.

A few hours after Tugung’s murder, about 200 heavily armed combat troops took up positions around the state-owned television station. Other contingents, backed by armored personnel carriers, secured Aquino’s presidential palace and Manila’s three major military bases. There did not appear to be any connection between the increased security and the murder.

Several employees of the government-owned TV broadcast complex, which was a crucial target in the coup that overthrew Marcos, quoted deputy Manila police commander Emiliano Templo as telling them to “stay calm.” The operation, he said, was only “a dress rehearsal.”

Another group of 450 combat troops secured the powerful Catholic Church-owned station, Radio Veritas. Caloy Sismundo, a Veritas spokesman, said the troops told them their mission was “to secure Veritas against any possible infiltration.” Sismundo added that the troops said they were guarding against attacks by “subversives” and that they planned to stay for two or three days.

Manila has been rocked by rumors of pending coups, aborted coups, limited coups, mini-coups and countercoups for the past month.

Enrile and his security troops, whose main criticisms of Aquino focused on her counterinsurgency program and allegedly inept Cabinet ministers, had been privately discussing a military move against the civilian government for nearly two months. But several key military sources said this week that the security force’s disenchantment with the Aquino administration had been temporarily defused two weeks ago during a key meeting between Enrile and Gen. Ramos.

The two military leaders, who led the church-sponsored coup against Marcos, together drew up a list of “recommendations,” which Ramos presented to the president when she returned from a state visit to Japan 10 days ago.

The list, contained in a letter signed by Ramos, asks Aquino to replace several Cabinet ministers whom the military considers inept or corrupt; to discontinue efforts to negotiate a cease-fire with leaders of the Communist insurgency, and to fire many of the local officials Aquino appointed to gubernatorial and mayoral posts after firing thousands of pro-Marcos officials.

Ramos reiterated his opposition to Aquino’s ongoing peace initiatives with the rebels on Saturday, declaring in a statement that the rebel’s negotiating group, the National Democratic Front, has no control over the Communist New People’s Army commanders, who continue to assassinate local officials and storm town halls in the Philippine countryside.

It was also clear on Saturday, however, that there is lingering anger with the Aquino administration among some of the Enrile supporters. Anti-Communist military demonstrations also took place at a camp in Butuan City on Mindanao, where soldiers and officers demanded that the government abandon its peace initiatives with the Communist rebels and fire inept ministers.

Rather than a coup by Enrile supporters, though, several longtime observers in Manila speculated that the intense security precautions ordered by Ramos today were aimed at averting any attempt by Marcos supporters--aided by dissident groups under Enrile--to retake the government from Aquino.

Marcos, who has been living in exile in Hawaii since the February revolt against his two decades of authoritarian rule, denied he is behind any plot to overthrow Aquino.

“My belief is that without lifting a finger, just sitting here, the government of Madame Aquino will collapse,” Marcos told reporters in Honolulu.