Pubdate:  Thu, 31 Jul 1997

By Ruben Alabastro 

MANILA, July 31 (Reuter)  A leading Philippine presidential candidate said
on Tuesday allegations linking her to a suspected drug lord were part of a
military plot to control political power in the country. 

``They concocted a plot that would have done the devil proud,'' opposition
senator Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said after a suspect, now in army custody,
named 46 people including four senators and five police generals, as supposed
protectors of a drugs ring. 

The three other senators on the list of supposed protectors of drug
traffickers also issued denials. They included Arroyo's vice presidential
running mate, Senator Vicente Sotto. 

The list, including 15 other police officers and a judge, was provided to
military interrogators by provincial businessman Florencio Parena, who
surrendered last week after police named him as a suspected trafficker. 

The illegal drugs trade  estimated to earn 250 billion pesos ($8.6 billion)
a year, or more than half the size of the national budget  has become one of
the black spots in President Fidel Ramos's administration, clouding Ramos's
success in turning a once bankrupt economy around. 

Arroyo said in a statement efforts to link her name to drugs traffickers were
intended to sabotage her candidacy in the 1998 presidential elections to
choose a successor to Ramos. 

``A clique in the military is sowing fear and mayhem,'' she said. 

She said this was part of a ``massive plot...to install another general in
the seat of power as was done in countries where an electoral game of the
generals goes nonstop.'' 

She did not name the general. 

Defence Secretary and exgeneral Renato de Villa is the only military man
among a dozen politicians who have annnounced their bid to run for president
in the May 1998 elections. 

De Villa, a prodigy of Ramos, who is also a former army general, denied any
involvement. ``I have never authorised and will never authorise any smear
campaign in the pursuit of my declared political objective,'' he said. 

Ramos, who is constitutionally barred from running for a second term, told
reporters no one in his government would stoop to ``dirty tricks'' to ensure
the victory of the administration candidate in the 1998 elections. 

Arroyo, daughter of a former president, has been running neckandneck with
VicePresident Joseph Estrada, also of the opposition, in opinion polls among
presidential candidates. 

De Villa and other administration aspirants have languished at the bottom of
the surveys. 

Publication of the list added a new twist to a tangled political drama that
began with the murder in June of a Manila journalist who had accused police
of protecting drug syndicates. 

Earlier on Thursday, a judge ordered Manila mayor Alfredo Lim to stop
branding the homes of suspected drug pushers with ``Get out'' signs after
human rights lawyers said Lim was behaving like Adolf Hitler. 

Judge Librado Correa directed Lim to suspend his antidrugs campaign for 20
days so the court could study the petition by a lawyers group which wants the
campaign permanently banned. 

The group likened Lim's methods to Hitler's campaign of branding the homes of
Jews with the Star of David.  

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