Philippine Coup Plot Reportedly Foiled : Plan Involved Seizing School, Taking Foreign Students Hostage

The Philippine military thwarted a plan by rebel soldiers to seize a private school and hold foreign children hostage in a coup attempt against President Corazon Aquino, officials and sources said Monday.

Brig. Gen. Alexander Aguirre, commander of the Manila military region, said the plot, reportedly devised by soldiers loyal to ousted President Ferdinand E. Marcos, was only “temporarily neutralized.”

A report by the official Philippines News Agency said senior officers crushed the plot by putting the entire military on full alert last weekend, confining all units to base.

The leftist Malaya newspaper, quoting intelligence sources, reported that about 1,000 enlisted men loyal to Marcos were involved in the plot. The Philippine News Agency said 400 were involved.

Aguirre said the soldiers planned to seize the International School and hold the 2,500 students and their teachers hostage. About 38% of the school’s students are American, many the children of diplomats or businessmen. Another 15% are Filipino and the rest are from India, Pakistan, South Korea, Australia and various European and Asian nations.

The soldiers would have demanded the resignation of Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, the armed forces chief of staff, in exchange for the hostages, newspapers said. Ramos’ wife, Amelia, works in the registrar’s office of the school, located in Manila’s exclusive Makati district.

A New Zealand mother, who has two children at the school, said soldiers in combat fatigues and carrying machine guns patrolled the premises during the week.

Ricardo Sauler, a guard at the school, said 15 members of a “special action force” armed with machine guns conducted body searches on everyone entering the premises for the past week.

TV Stations Targeted

Aguirre said the soldiers were part of the military’s “preemptive action” against the coup plotters.

The Philippine News Agency said the disgruntled soldiers also were plotting the seizure of two television stations and a radio station, and newspapers said the plot also involved the takeover of the Manila headquarters of the country’s telephone company.

Soldiers loyal to Marcos have mounted at least three previous attempts to overthrow Aquino since she came to power in February, 1986, in a “People Power” revolution that forced Marcos to flee the country.

Asked if the plotters had any connection with those who seized a television station in January, Aguirre said all the coup attempts over the past 14 months were connected.

“It was supposed to happen in the last two weeks,” Aguirre said of the coup attempt. “We are still studying this. There is still intelligence gathering, intelligence action (to be taken).”

In the 18-year-old Communist insurrection, soldiers captured northern Luzon’s main guerrilla base and killed about 40 rebels during a three-week operation, the army said. It did not give government casualties.

Battles on Samar island in the Visayas chain last week left nine rebels, eight soldiers and two civilians dead. Reports said guerrillas in northern Mindanao killed five civilians.