AFP, PNP begin preparations for Pope's visit

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) have already started preparing for Pope Francis's visit to the Philippines in January 2015.

AFP Chief of Staff General Gregorio Catapang said in a report on "24 Oras" aired early Monday evening that the military is committing two battalions of its United Nations Disengagement Observer Force Zone (UNDOF) peacekeepers who have been withdrawn from Golan Heights and those who had been training to replace them.

Joining the soldiers are some members of the PNP. A special task force headed by a star rank PNP official will be formed for the Pope's visit.

Security threats

PNP's new spokesman Sr. Supt. Wilben Mayor said that the national police is looking into reports of security threats in the country such as alleged recruitment in Mindanao by Islamic State militants.

Aside from the Islamic State threats in the country, the PNP is also looking into possible threats similar to "Oplan Bojinka" that was discovered a few days before Pope John Paul II, now a saint, visited the Philippines in 1995. Muslim extremist Ramzi Yousef who led the terror project was planning to assassinate the Pope back then.  

The plan was revealed when a chemical fire sparked in one of the rooms at Doña Josefa Apartment in Malate, Manila that the terrorists occupied.

Aside from assassinating the Pope, "Oplan Bojinka" also involved plans to bomb 11 airliners en route to the United States and crashing a plane full of bombs into the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia, USA.

The thwarted attack plan was said to be the basis of the 9/11 terror attacks in the United States. — Trisha Macas/JDS, GMA News