PHILLIPPINES:Security forces in the Philippines have arrested five former elite troops they accuse of plotting to stage a coup against the beleaguered government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
The southeast Asian archipelago is on high alert this week amid fears that anti-government forces may try and stage a coup before next Tuesday to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the Edsa II Metro revolt which unseated former president Joseph Estrada.
Edsa is the main highway in Metro Manila and the site of two peaceful demonstrations that toppled the administration of two Filipino presidents.
Four of the five ex-servicemen belonged to the army's elite Scout Rangers unit while one was a former marine. Another active soldier, also a Scout Ranger, was arrested by intelligence service officials, local media reported.They were charged with illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.
"They were believed to be part of a larger group plotting fresh destabilisation activities against the government," said Supt Michel Filart of the national police's criminal investigation and detection office.
Ms Arroyo succeeded Mr Estrada after an army-backed popular uprising in 2001. Her presidency has been marked by three coup attempts by soldiers to topple her from power in the last four years. She has also defeated three motions to impeach her since 2005.
Philippine police believe elements of the Magdalo group of renegade soldiers, who were involved in two aborted coup attempts in the past, are still planning to oust Ms Arroyo. Soldiers have been behind the attempts to oust her, but her administration is backed by the upper ranks of the military. Her grip on power is fragile because of repeated allegations of corruption within the government.
Security officials said they were worried about a coup attempt during street marches by left-wing groups to mark a violent farmers' rally in 1987 that killed 11 protesters.
Ms Arroyo is in office until June 2010 but will then no longer be eligible to run for re-election.
On November 29th, dissident soldiers and some opposition politicians took over a room at the Peninsula Hotel in Manila and demanded her resignation. The government responded by sending in an armoured car and said it was an anti-government plot.
Ms Arroyo's government is also fighting a war against the communist National People's Army. This month, the Philippine army announced that it would enlist 3,000 new soldiers to fight the NPA fighters, who are believed to be weakening.
Ms Arroyo has set a 2010 deadline for the military to defeat the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. "We are in the final stages. It is proper not to slacken or loosen our hold to deliver the coup de grace," said army chief, Lt Gen Alexander Yano.
Ms Arroyo's government is also struggling to contain Muslim insurgents in the restive south of the country. The Philippines is an overwhelmingly Catholic country but a Muslim minority in the south has been fighting for decades for self-rule.
This week gunmen killed Fr Rey Roda (55), a parish priest on Tawi-tawi, a remote Muslim island in the southernmost tip of the Tawi-tawi archipelago, in a botched kidnapping attempt. Fr Roda was the third missionary killed in the region since 1997.