NBI probe confirms coup plot

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has confirmed a coup plot by the shadowy Council of Philippine Affairs (COPA) to destabilise the government of President Gloria Arroyo.

NBI chief Reynaldo Wycoco said intelligence findings on the possibility that COPA secretary general Pastor 'Boy' Saycon "may have participated in destabilisation or a possible coup is positive.

"While our findings confirm it, the coup plot remains an unborn foetus," Wycoco said, adding, "No action was taken, no harmful effect has yet resulted. And we cannot pick up these people for meeting (Archbishop Jaime) Cardinal Sin and charge them for dreaming (of a takeover)."

Saycon keeps an itinerary but also carefully keeps the NBI agents, assigned as security to him, out of these meetings. The agents are usually left at the parking area.

"He often visits the respectable participants of the rallies that ousted former president Joseph Estrada (in January 2001), Wycoco said, adding, "They are all above suspicion."

Wycoco did not name the "legitimate people", including those who helped catapult Arroyo to power last year, and the current details of the Freedom Force plot which "are still being further investigated".

Last Monday, an opposition paper quoted military spies as saying that Wycoco himself was also a part of the Freedom Force plot. The PCA was itself a driving force in the ouster of Estrada.

At that time, Wycoco was second in command of the Philippine National Police (PNP). Wycoco laughed off reports of the opposition newspaper that quoted military intelligence sources as saying that he is part of the COPA's "Freedom Force" junta plot.