MANILA, Philippines — Senator Pia Cayetano favors the imposition of sanctions against a military official, who sounded the alarm that three or four bombers linked to Islamist terror groups may have entered Metro Manila.

Cayetano said Major General Jogy Leo Fojas, chief of the National Capital Region Command (NCRCom), “deserves to be sanctioned for revealing intelligence information and causing unnecessary panic among the people.”

“The general’s alarmist comments achieved nothing except sow confusion and create even more instability that this administration alone has caused. It’s plain disservice, especially on the heels of the Mindanao bombings,” she said in a statement on Friday.

While she lauded Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro’s order to the military against issuing premature statements, Cayetano raised the possibility that the general might also know “something about a scare plot that Teodoro does not know about.”

“Is it possible he (Teodoro) is being kept in the dark by Malacanang?” she asked.

“I hope they are not just feigning ignorance over Gen. Fojas’ lapse in judgment. At the very least, disciplinary actions must be in order to prevent similar mistakes from being committed as this involves a sensitive matter of national security,” she further said.

Meanwhile, Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero slammed the government for its “laughable’ effort to portray a “doomsday scenario” allegedly meant to cover up the glaring shortcomings and scandals of the present administration.

These series of bombings in the country, he said, looked and sounded like a “concerted action by some people with the sole objective of needlessly alarming the populace.”

“One need not be a rocket scientist to deduce the connection between the series of explosions in Mindanao and the supposedly destabilization efforts carried out by seemingly misguided souls to bomb government buildings in Quezon City,” Escudero said in a statement.

“It is a desperate but laughable effort to portray a doomsday scenario that is only meant to cover up the glaring shortcomings and scandals that have rocked this administration from its first day in power,” he said.

While no group or individual has taken responsibility for the bombings, Escudero noted that the government has not hesitated to cast the blame on renegade factions of the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and other unnamed elements.

“At the end of the day, it boils down to credibility and capability, two vital ingredients of real democratic societies that can tolerate dissent and accept responsibility for failure. The current government does not have both,” he said.

The senator then called on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo “to rein in some of her more zealous supporters, who shudder at the thought that their perks and powers will be gone in a few months, and that they may soon have to answer to the people.”