MANILA, Philippines -- It is the Left, not the Right, that poses a bigger threat to the anti-government interfaith prayer rally in Makati City on Friday, as far as the commander of military forces in the capital is concerned.
While their capabilities have been "greatly diminished," the communist New People's Army (NPA) and the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf could still mount bomb attacks, said Major General Fernando Mesa, chief of the Armed Forces National Capital Region Command (NCRCom).
Mesa said the threat from rightists was "very minimal," as he debunked reports that troops would join the protest should the crowd at the rally district reach one million people.
Mesa said the 3,000-strong NRCom remains on red alert and on standby in Camp Aguinaldo, with half of these forces "maneuverable" upon the request of the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO).
Asked about the threat from the leftists, Mesa said: "We have received information about that. Let us not forget the past, Plaza Miranda…They have the tendency to blame these things on the administration."
Mesa was referring to the grenade attack on a rally of the political opposition to then president Ferdinand Marcos at Plaza Miranda in downtown Manila in 1971. The attack has been blamed variously on the then fledgling NPA and Marcos, who was to place the country under martial law the next year and begin a 14-year dictatorship.
"The threat to the rallies has not changed, [it's the] terrorists, like the Abu Sayaf. We know they cans till conduct bombings in Mindanao…They can do the same thing here," he told reporters in an interview in Camp Aguinaldo.
Mesa belied accusations the military was raising the communist and terrorist scare to discourage people from joining anti-government rallies.
He also stressed that the reported presence of the NPA and the Abu Sayyaf in the capital is still being verified.
"The rally, for as long it is lawful [and] it is in accordance with the rules, that is part of democracy and that is what we in the Armed Forces had always been saying, that our role is to preserve democracy," he said.
Allegations that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband pocketed millions of dollars in kickbacks from the botched national broadband network project have sparked a fresh wave of street protests calling for her ouster.
The largest crowd mustered since the surfacing of a Senate witness was on February 15, when close to 10,000 joined a protest march on Ayala Avenue in the Makati financial district.
Organizers expect a bigger crowd on Friday. The program will run from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
