Huge Manhunt on for Coup Leaders : 705 Mutineers in Custody; Aquino Aides Press for Severe Punishment

The Philippine armed forces launched a huge manhunt Saturday for leaders of a bloody attempted coup against President Corazon Aquino, and the president’s aides began pushing for severe punishment of the plotters. Aquino also appeared to rule out leniency.

Tanks and armored trucks sealed off the major expressway connecting Manila to the rural provinces in northern Luzon island Saturday afternoon, after police reported that trucks, buses and jeeps carrying heavily armed rebels who had escaped the government’s successful counterassault were moving freely through towns and villages.

Tanks and troops also barricaded all roads leading to the Malacanang Palace, a complex embracing Aquino’s office and home, throughout the night Saturday and this morning to guard against what one senior military officer called “a remote possibility of a second offensive by remnants of the rebel force.”

Surrender to Ramos

As the armed forces began their intensive search Saturday for the coup leader, Col. Gregorio Honasan, a former chief of security for one-time Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, and other officers who had led more than 1,000 mutinous troops in 20 hours of urban warfare Friday against soldiers loyal to Aquino, hundreds of other rebels surrendered to Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, armed forces chief of staff.

Enrile, who had made no public comment during the uprising, said today that he was not involved in the coup attempt in any way, the Associated Press reported. “I had no communications with them,” Enrile said of the coup leaders.

“I was also afraid that if I said anything I would be implicated. I am already being blamed for this coup.”

Enrile said that Honasan “never consulted me” before launching the coup and that he had not seen Honasan since Aug. 13, the day Enrile was proclaimed a senator.

Ramos told reporters in a Saturday afternoon press conference that 705 rebels had surrendered, and navy sources said that 610 of those were being held in the sweltering cargo hold of a navy landing craft docked in Manila Bay. The detention was intended both as punishment and a precaution against a possible jailbreak engineered by the rebel soldiers who fled two military bases as their uprising began to fail Friday evening, senior military sources said.

Special presidential counsel Teodoro Locsin Jr., one of Aquino’s closest personal advisers, visited Ramos’ office Saturday with orders that all coup participants should be dealt with severely.

“I came here authorized to say (to the military), the more you kill the better,” Locsin told The Times in an interview in Ramos’ private office.

“No conditions. No terms. I want to see Honasan, (fellow suspected coup leaders Lt. Col. Eduardo) Kapunan and (Lt. Col. Tito) Legaspi dead before the day is over.”

Aquino Takes Stern Stand

Aquino herself said Saturday, in response to a question shouted at her by a reporter as she was returning from her office to her residence: “There is no question of forgiving (the plotters), because this was not just done against me. It was done against the entire country. And look how many innocent civilians were killed.”

The mutiny left at least 42 people dead and about 275 injured, and it thrust Aquino’s government into its gravest crisis in the 18 months since the president took power after a coup, carried out by the military and backed by the Roman Catholic Church and vast sectors of the civilian public, toppled Ferdinand E. Marcos after 20 years of authoritarian rule.

Several political analysts gave the president and Gen. Ramos high marks for surviving the sixth major attempt to overthrow Aquino’s government. But there was no celebration in the presidential palace Saturday.

In a solemn ceremony across the Pasig River from the palace, Aquino and her wounded son, Benigno S. Aquino III, attended a memorial service for her son’s three bodyguards, who were slain by the rebels in the violent pre-dawn rebel raid on Malacanang that launched the mutiny shortly after 1 a.m. Friday. The 25-year-old Benigno wore bandages over his neck and shoulder, the result of gunshot wounds inflicted by the handful of rebel soldiers who staged the attack, apparently as a diversion to draw government troops away from the rebels’ prime targets, two key Manila military camps.

‘Punish These Traitors’

The president’s anger was reflected in a speech to the nation Friday afternoon, when she announced, amid an all-out military assault on the rebels’ base camp near Philippine armed forces headquarters in Manila’s Camp Aguinaldo, that she had ordered Ramos to “punish these traitors.”

It was unclear during Ramos’ press conference Saturday, however, just how severely the rebels would be treated. Although Ramos has initiated courts-martial against several hundred soldiers who seized a broadcast station and attacked military camps last January, none has been convicted. And Aquino’s government is still being criticized for doling out 30 push-ups as the only punishment to pro-Marcos mutineers who seized a posh Manila hotel a year ago in a failed attempt to overthrow the government.

When asked how he would punish the rebel troops, blamed for the deaths of at least 30 civilians and 12 government soldiers on Friday, Ramos told reporters it will be up to the courts to decide.

The chief of staff sounded almost sympathetic to many of the surrendering rebels, telling reporters that, in many cases, they “were just misled by their commanding officers or by Col. Honasan himself . . . and like good soldiers, some of these guys just followed the leaders.”

The chief of staff also indicated that he agreed with some of the positions voiced by the coup leaders, who, unlike those in previous attempts staged by pro-Marcos forces, were mainly officers who had been instrumental in the successful February, 1986, coup that drove Marcos into exile and brought Aquino to power.

“The military should have more of a say in how the country is being run,” Ramos said, responding to the gist of broadcast statements by the rebel leaders saying that they had moved against Aquino because her government was neglecting the welfare of the soldiers, many of whom have been battling Communist insurgents throughout the country almost daily.

“He is not alone in expressing his feelings,” Ramos added, referring to the rebels’ spokesman, who read the group’s statement on a television station they had seized.

Ramos became a national hero after he joined Enrile in leading the coup against Marcos. But he has been criticized for failing to mend the deep divisions in the armed forces--political and ideological rifts that military experts say widened sharply during Friday’s prolonged fighting between soldiers and officers who once fought side by side.

Ramos Called Too Weak

Respected former Philippine generals and Western military analysts have also been privately critical of the chief of staff’s performance, contending that Ramos is too weak to purge the military of the intense internal politics that took hold after the 1986 uprising.

Sources close to the president, however, insisted that Aquino was impressed with Ramos’ apparently successful repression of the mutiny and that she is now more supportive than ever of her embattled chief of staff.

“Maybe he doesn’t appear strong,” one presidential aide who asked not to be identified said of Ramos on Saturday. “But the president believes in performance, and the fact is, this guy has won every time.

“Every time someone has moved against this government, Gen. Ramos has beaten them. You’ve got to give him a lot of credit for that.”

It was still not clear Saturday, however, whether the entire rebel force behind Friday’s coup attempt had been totally defeated.

Independent military sources confirmed that “remnants” of the mutinous force “remain scattered all over the place,” adding, “The only question is what their intentions are--what’s their next move.”

Rebels Escaped Loyalists

The size of those remnants also remained in question. The government news agency, in reporting the government’s retaking of the Camp Olivas military base, an hour’s drive north of Manila, conceded that the rebels who had seized the camp all managed to escape before loyalist troops moved in.

Adding to the confusion, military sources confirmed that the Communist New People’s Army ambushed a highway patrol car just outside the camp Saturday night, killing three government troopers. Other reports said a group of the mutinous troops had staged the attack.

In a separate incident soon afterward, a rebel soldier, identified by the upside-down flag patch on his uniform that was used as the rebels’ recognition sign, opened fire indiscriminately on a rural road near Clark Air Base, a large American base several miles from Camp Olivas.

U.S. Personnel Restricted

American Armed Forces Television, in broadcasts from the Clark base, announced several times Saturday night that all American military and civilian personnel were confined to the base until further notice for security reasons.

But the hunt for Col. Honasan, a charismatic combat veteran who has become something of a folk hero to many Filipinos, commanded most of the government’s attention Saturday night.

Gen. Eduardo Ermita, Ramos’ deputy chief of staff who commanded a 116-man force that prevented Honasan’s troops from taking the military’s general headquarters building at Camp Aguinaldo during the coup attempt, said Honasan left the rebel stronghold just before 5:30 p.m. Friday, shortly after an air strike by loyalist planes on rebel positions.

Honasan walked calmly past pro-government soldiers who were retaking the camp and then jumped over one of the camp’s retaining walls. A waiting car took him to Manila’s Villamor Air Base, parts of which had been taken by the rebels. Honasan and fellow coup leader, Lt. Col. Legaspi, then commandeered an air force helicopter and flew away, reliable military sources said.

Several sources said early today that Honasan was believed to be in hiding in the rural region north of Manila.