Philippine police Sunday went on full alert to prepare for possible anti-government plots Monday and Tuesday in Metro Manila.
The National Capital Region Police said this was in response to a warning by Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales who said last week "a destabilization plot" would be launched against the government.
Police spokesman Senior Superintendent Nicanor Bartolome said police were bracing for possible infiltration by anti-government elements when demonstrators, mostly farmers marking the 20th anniversary of death of some farmers who were shot by police in Manila, enter central part of Metro Manila.
"While we secure the ranks of rallyists because they could be infiltrated, we also definitely will secure the majority that will be affected by the rallies -- the students, those who will go to work, our ordinary citizens who use the roads to go to their respective activities," said Bartolome.
Gonzales said he got intelligence information that a coup attempt would be made on Jan. 22 without elaborating.
Some soldiers staged a short-lived stand-off with the authorities in November last year in the financial hub of Makati City in Metro Manila.
Militant farmers from Southern Tagalog and Central Luzon regions in central Philippines, many of them on foot or riding jeeps, are arriving in Metro Manila for the planned rallies over the past few days.
They are going to hold rallies at the Department of Agrarian Reform in Quezon City Monday and march on to near the Malacanang presidential palace in Manila City the following day to protest the failure of the government to carry out promised agrarian reforms.
Bartolome said alert status of police in Southern Tagalog and Central Luzon and elite Special Action Force would be "heightened" so that they would be ready to reinforce National Capital Region in case untoward incidents occur.
Bartolome also said police are also expecting rallies at the EDSA Shrine along a thoroughfare in Metro Manila, where two mass rallies stimulated the ouster of former presidents Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001.
Source:Xinhua
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