Military converts camp into Detention facility

The military has begun converting a guesthouse in Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal, where former President Estrada was detained, into a secured facility where renegade soldiers might be detained. The construction has been going on for weeks and would be ready for occupancy within several weeks more, an official of the 2nd Infantry Division said. The new detention facility has guard posts and watchtowers, and a reinforced fence with barbed wires and searchlights on top. Military commander, who requested anonymity, said that the military guesthouse is being converted into a detention facility to “accommodate" senior leaders of the failed plot to overthrow the Arroyo administration. At least four senior military and police officers - erstwhile Scout Ranger commander Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim, former 1st Marine Brigade chief Col. Ariel Querubin and Chief Supt. Marcelino Franco, former head of Philippine National Police Special Action Force (PNP-SAF), are being linked to the plot. Of the three, only Lim and Franco are restricted in their quarters. The three and their men supposedly planned to join the anti-Arroyo protest rallies on February 24 and withdrew their support from the President. Army chief Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said that the new detention facility may house military personnel who were involved in destabilization move. He, however, declined to name names. “As much as possible, we don’t want to detain here civilians because it would be better if they are in the custody of the PNP and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, Esperon said. When asked if members of the mutinous Magdalo Group would be transferred to the building, Esperon said: “We are not transferring them at the moment, but that could possible." Referring to would-be detainees, Esperon said: “Think of it (facility) as secured transient quarters….Its just in the mind, when you are inside that detention cell you are the most secured individual." On January 17, four Magdalo officers, Capt. Nathaniel Rabonza, and 1Lts. Lawrence San Juan, Sonny Sarmiento and Patricio Bumidang, escaped from a supposed secure facility inside the Army headquarters in Fort Bonifacio. Of the four, only San Juan was re-arrested on February 18 in Batangas. Top military officials later linked San Juan in a conspiracy with the Communist Party of the Philippines to bring down the Arroyo government. –GMANews.TV