Manila Two former coup plotters who were eventually elected as senators said that the alleged coup plots against President Benigno Aquino would not succeed as they are unlikely to garner the required support.

A band of active and retired military officers have been recruiting supporters from the military since last year to stage a coup but nothing has happened to the Aquino administration, Senator Antonio Trillanes said.

"The soldiers would rather report about the anti-administration efforts than join them," said Trillanes.

Senator Gregorio Honasan said, "Coup plots against President Aquino will never succeed because it will not be supported by the people."

When asked what advice he would give the coup plotters who might approach him, Honasan said, "I will just tell them my experience [as a veteran and a failed coup plotter], and it's up to them to decide whether to join the coup plot or not," he told reporters.

Trillanes led several failed coup plots against former President Gloria Arroyo between 2003 and 2007. Honasan, on the other hand, had led several coup plots against former president Corazon Aquino from 1987 to 1989.

Threat within

Honasan was part of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement that led a people-backed military mutiny that ousted former dictator Ferdinand Marcos and propped to power Corazon Aquino in 1986.

Later the former coup plotters became part of the Senate or the House of Representatives as part of a peace settlement during informal talks between the government and the right wing rebels, a class that began to emerge in 1986, analysts said.

The Philippines is also facing several insurgency groups: the 43-year-old Communist Party of the Philippines and its military arm, the New People's Army (CPP-NPA), and two formerly secessionist Filipino-Muslim rebels based in the south.

A local terror group, the Abu Sayyaf, which has links with Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian conduit of the Al Qaida terror network, is based in the south. It has been blamed for kidnap-for-ransom, bombings, beheadings, and other terror activities in the south and also in Metro Manila.