Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, August 16, 2003
Philippine Opposition Senator under Police Surveillance
Opposition Senator Gregorio Honasanis under surveillance and will be arrested as soon as a warrant is issued for his alleged involvement in last month's short-lived mutiny, the police said.
Opposition Senator Gregorio Honasanis under surveillance and will be arrested as soon as a warrant is issued for his alleged involvement in last month's short-lived mutiny, the police said.
Eduardo Matillano, chief of the police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, said the police have been keeping tabs on Honasan's whereabouts since the senator went missing after the July 27 mutiny, the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper reported Saturday.
"We are monitoring his movements and it won't be difficult to arrest him when the need arises," Matillano was quoted as saying on Friday. But he refused to say where Honasan was.
Honasan went into hiding after he was linked to the mutiny, which was allegedly part of a bigger conspiracy to topple the government and install a 15-member junta headed by him.
The senator, a former army colonel who figured in several coup attempts against the administration of former President Corazon Aquino in the late 1980s, has denied any involvement in the mutiny.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said Thursday that Honasan's playing "hide and seek" would not help him clear his name.
Some 300 renegade soldiers seized a shopping mall and hotel complex in the Makati financial district of Manila in the small hours of July 27 but surrendered peacefully that night.