The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Sunday declared the highest red alert status in Metro Manila and deployed some 3,000 troops prior to the annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) to be delivered by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to a joint session of Congress on Monday.

About 1,000 troops would be deployed at the site of the House of Representatives, the Batasang Pambasan complex in Quezon City where Arroyo will make her speech, in anticipation of protest rallies nearby to be organized by opposition and militant groups calling for the resignation of Arroyo, Captain Ramon Zagala, spokesman of the AFP's National Capital Region (NCR) Command, said at a news briefing.

Another 2,000 troops will be on the stand to respond to emergency situations which could take place, he said.

"Effective 12 noon today (Sunday), the NCR went on red alert, for us to secure the SONA of our president," he said.

The spokesman said militant groups are expected to deliver their own "state of the nation address" in the streets of Metro Manila on Monday during protest rallies, while the possibility of action by terrorist groups to sabotage the SONA address is not ruled out.

"At present, we are not seeing threats other than the rallies but we cannot discount the threat of terrorism, the internal security threats who might take advantage of the situation. We went on red alert so that in cases of any attack, we will be ready to respond," he said.

The Philippine National Police will also deploy 6,000 policemen around the Batasang Pambasan complex on Monday to secure the SONA delivery, while 15,000 other policemen will be fanned out across Metro Manila to contain expected anti-government protests.

Arroyo is expected to outline "Phase 2" part of her economic reforms along with other measures to ease wide-spread poverty, create jobs, attract foreign investment, improve the country's international credit ratings and fight terrorism and crimes.

She is also expected to touch on "damage-control" measures to win back eroding public trust and improve her dropping popularity rates caused by opposition allegations that she tried to influence vote counting results in last year's presidential election and that her family was involved in illegal gambling business.

Source: Xinhua