Sen. Benigno S. Aquino Jr.
Press Release
September 13, 1972

Subject: FM Martial Law Plan Unmasked

Sen. Benigno S. Aquino Jr. unmasked today a “top secret” Military plan ordered by President Marcos to put Greater Manila, 12 towns of Rizal and the whole of Bulacan province under PC control as a prelude to clamping martial law.

In a privileged speech, Aquino also identified the plan as codenamed “Oplan (Operation Plan) Sagittarius” and said it had been “finalized.”

The plan, Aquino said, was prepared by general Headquarters, Armed Forces of the Philippines J-3 (Plans and Operation) under Col. Mamerto Bocanegra.

Aquino also revealed:

1. An AFP-GHQ Letter-Order of instruction (LOI) which will serve as complimentary execution-action plan with (Oplan Sagittarius,” was expected to be released shortly.
2. An executive order was being awaited to legalize the plans’s execution.

In his expose, Aquino detailed “Oplan Sagittarius”:

1. It calls for an organization of a joint task force, with troop contributions from the different major commands.
2. Metrocom will have operational control over the task force.
3. The task force will be composed of four to five battalions and will be self-contained, with signal and logistical backups and air and naval tactical support.
4. To be placed under PC-Metrocom control in the initial phase are: the Greater Manila cities of Manila, Quezon, Pasay, and Caloocan, the whole of province of Bulacan, the towns of San Juan, Pasig, Parañaque, Taguig, Navotas, Makati, Mandaluyong, Las Piñas, Muntinglupa, San Mateo, Marikina and Pateros in Rizal province.
5. All city and police forces in these areas will be placed under PC control when the plan is implemented.

Colonel Bocanegra, the Tarlac solon further revealed, was directed in turn to draw up the details of “Oplan Sagittarius”.

All major commands and special units of the AFP, he said, have been ordered to give “top priority” to the plan.

Activating the task force, Aquino said, will have as “excuse” the “so-called increased sabotage activities and liquidation plans by urban guerillas operating in the Greater Manila area.”

Aquino said he could not explain why the military planners codenamed the plan as “Sagittarius”.

He noted, however, that Sagittarius is one of the zodiacal constellations – “when the sun enters November 22.”

“It is possible this plan has a bearing with November which, as everyone knows, is the Philippine election month,” he opined.

In astronomy, he noted further, Sagittarius is the 9th sign of the zodiac – denoted by the symbol of the arrow or dart.

The ancient Greeks represented this constellation as a centaur in the act of shooting an arrow and professed it to be Crotus, son of Eupheme, the nurse of the muses, Aquino recalled.

“Could this be a plan to shoot down our cherished civil liberties with the arrow or dart of Marcos military rule?” Aquino asked.

“Could this be the arrowhead, the spearhead, of a more devilish plot to our Republic into a garrison state?”

Aquino went on to also note that Pres. Marcos had reportedly promised congress’ leaders that they would first be consulted before he declares martial law.

“But,” he recalled, “Mr. Marcos already has an established history of acting without consulting, like when he suspended the writ of habeas corpus last year.”

“Oplan Sagittarius”, he hastened to add, “confirms the dread felt by all freedom-loving Filipinos over recent events.”

At the height of the Huk campaigns in the late forties and early fifties, Aquino further noted, the armed Huk partisans were estimated at 15,000 men and knocking on Manila’s very doors – “and yet martial law was never declared.”

“Only the privilege of writ of habeas corpus was suspended then – and only in troubled provinces,” Aquino underlined.

He continued:
“By the army’s own estimates, the NPAs today number no more than 1,000 armed partisans – or one-fifteenth of the former Huk enemy. Why – then – should Mr. Marcos script these moves geared to the ultimate goal of declaring martial law?”

Aquino also pointed out that in the so-called 19 terrorist bombings in Greater Manila, only one person had been killed and in the one incident where there was one fatality, the Manila Metropolitan Police clearly identified the suspects as a bunch of extortionists.

“In the other 18 ‘bombings’,” he observed, “no one was hurt, like nobody was hurt in the so-called July-August plan ‘bombings’ after Plaza Miranda last year, which would clearly indicate that it was not the handiwork of terrorists out to spread death and destruction.”

Aquino again asked: “Why was ‘Oplan Sagittarius’ ordered and fleshed out well in advance of the current so-called bombing incidents? Did the AFP know beforehand what the NPAs were planning to do?”

“Oplan Sagittarius”, Aquino said, also envisions harnessing the potentials of the private armies of the NP partisans.

To legalized the existence of the private armies, he said, “Sagittarius” calls for the activation of civil authorities “in the guise of maintaining peace and order within their respective localities.”

NP governors and mayors will be called into active duty with the armed forces their private armies will in turn be legitimized, Aquino said.

The plan as scripted further calls, he said, “for some NP governors to insist and recommend to the President their immediate activation for greater involvement in the counter-subversive drive of the government.”

“Since the request came from then,” Aquino said, quoting from the “top secret” AFP plan, “naturally the President cannot be criticized.”

The plan also took into consideration the problem to be posed by LP governors and mayors, the young Liberal leader said.

“Answering this,” he said, “the plan recommended that LP-held territories be saturated with regular AFP troops to neutralize the need for issuing firearms to LP civil officials and their followers.”

The AFP, after every bombing incident in Manila, Aquino said, has been quick to tag the NPAs as the bombers.

“For example,” Aquino said, “after the Carriedo bombing, the AFP authorities immediately issued an assessment claiming the bombers were NPAs.”

Subsequently, Aquino said, MMP officers arrested two prime suspects, one of them a PC sergeant employed with the PC firearms and explosives section.

Senseless terrorism runs counter to the fundamental principle of Maoist guerilla warfare, he asserted, reaching out into Maoist doctrines.

Aquino said: “Chairman Mao’s handbook clearly states that military operations should be launched after taking every precaution that no harm is done on hapless and innocent civilians. Furthermore, the Maoist strategy calls for a strategic line of encircling the cities ‘from the countryside,’ before seizing them in the final phase of protracted people’s war.”