Rumors flying for months about a military coup in the Philippines may just have turned out to be true, as an investigation has led to the finding of 16 officers planning to overthrow the government.

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippine army has questioned at least 14 lieutenants and sergeants linked to a plot to unseat President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a general said on Wednesday, adding he was confident no coup attempt would ever succeed.

Lieutenant-General Hermogenes Esperon, head of the army, said authorities had identified about 16 junior officers who were planning to carry out a coup. Two of them are absent without leave.

But he said the army has convinced most of the officers to abandon the plot and has disciplined a few uncooperative junior officers.

“I am confident that we have a solid armed forces,” Esperon told reporters. “Any coup attempt would not succeed because we have a solid army.”

The plot, named “Oplan Hackle”, was meant to create a military junta and involved the mass release of officers facing trial for leading a failed uprising in July 2003.

Citing intelligence reports, Esperon said the revolt was planned for either last weekend when graduates of the Philippine Military Academy gathered for a reunion or on March 25 when Arroyo will address the graduating class of 2006.

“We are not saying that we have totally pre-empted ‘Oplan Hackle’,” he told a news conference at the main military camp in Manila.

“We continue to investigate to find out more details. But, we are ready to take action against any group that will destabilise this country, this government.”

Apparently, the plan that the 16 officers had laid out involved releasing prisoners involved in the 2003 attempted-coup with the help of about 200 other soldiers recruited for the plot. They would then try to dislodge the government and form a junta. To say the least, they suffer from delusions of grandeur and I doubt that they would have been able to carry out the operation fully toward its end. When the military leadership is loyal to the government, as is the case here, they certainly weren’t going to get far.

The plan certainly does come on the heels of recently imflamed opposition toward Gloria Arroyo’s presidency due to corruption scandals, but the nature of the coup itself is not on behalf of the opposition itself. The drop in Arroyo’s legitimacy would only be a factor in legitimizing the coup itself, or so the plotters would hope. However, and it may be unnecessary to say this, but the coup would not be democratic in nature as rejuvenated democracy would not be the course that they seek.

On this note, we have to backtrack a bit. The Philippine military is notoriously corrupt, especially in the lower rungs. Many officers have conflicting loyalties. These coup plotters, according to this report, sided with communist rebels and were ready to stage what the document called “The Last Revolution, which outlined the stages of establishing a revolutionary government after forcibly removing Arroyo.” It also outlined the abolition of democratic institutions for the purpose of creating this communist government.

So let’s call this what it is. In reality, it was an attempted coup by communist guerillas acting within the system itself. But a couple of officers on the lower rung of the military hierarchy probably had little chance of success anyway, so chances are this story itself is being blown a bit out of proportion. The only true significance of this is the symbolic element; that it is called the “Final Revolution” and was to be commited near the 20th anniversary of the original People Power Revolution, which didn’t live up to the full hype.