Manila: President Rodrigo Duterte has ordered the military to end the campaign against the Maute in Marawi City within the next three days as officials said that the terror group “is on the verge of defeat.”
Col. Edgard Arevalo, spokesperson of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said the military aims to meet a new deadline set by the President to end the fighting in the central Mindanao city.
“The military is exploring all means to end the conflict in Marawi City, which started on May 23, in the next three days, as President Rodrigo Duterte instructed,” Arevalo said.
The deadline was the second set by the President after the military failed to meet the June 2 limit the military earlier set for itself to put a conclusion to the fighting.
“The safety of civilians is our foremost concern,” said Arevalo.
Police were assisting soldiers in enforcing an arrest warrant against Basilan-based Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon in Marawi City when the latter’s followers, aided by the Maute, moved to protect him by going on a rampage across the city to create a diversion.
The military said Hapilon remains in the city as well as some 250 of Maute members and sympathisers.
Nearly two weeks after the crisis broke out, large areas of Marawi City are ravaged following heavy fighting and air strikes by helicopter gunships and ground attack aircraft.
According to the military, 120 Maute men have already died from the fighting as well as 38 from the government side. Twenty civilians were executed by the militants while 1,467 civilians were rescued.
Last Sunday, during a visit in Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu, Central Philippines, Duterte insisted that he would not negotiate with the Maute or the foreign terrorists assisting the militants. He ordered troops to further intensify their offensive.
“I will not negotiate. You came to the Philippines to create trouble. You do not want to do nothing with the world except to kill and destroy. If that is what you want, then I will give that to you, I will not spare your life,” Duterte said before members of military and police.
Duterte said it would have been easy for him to eliminate the Maute group in Marawi but laws and various agreements and treaties have prevented him from doing so.
“They (military) cannot just fire at will at all people because we are government and we are bound by rules. We are bound by agreements and we are bound by treaties. And even without that, we should know that we are fighting fellow Filipinos,” he said.
Philippine opposition lawmakers petitioned the Supreme Court on Monday to review and nullify Duterte’s imposition of martial law in the southern areas of the country.
The petition filed by six House lawmakers led by Rep. Edcel Lagman said there was no revolution or invasion where public safety required the declaration of martial law and suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. It said the proclamation contained “factual inaccuracies and falsities.”
The petitioners said Congressional leaders and the majority of lawmakers allied with Duterte were derelict in their constitutional duty by refusing to convene a joint session of Congress to vote whether or not to revoke the martial law.
Duterte made the declaration on May 23 after extremists allied with Daesh group laid siege to Marawi city. The declaration lasts through mid-July but could be extended with the consent of Congress.
“The President’s proclamation of martial law in Mindanao has no sufficient factual basis as it is feebly based on mostly contrived and/or inaccurate facts, self-serving speculations, enumeration of distant occurrences and mere conclusions of fact and law on the purported existence of ‘rebellion or invasion’,” the lawmakers said.
They said the martial law imposition is “flawed” because Duterte “acted alone without the benefit of a recommendation from Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana or from any ranking officer of the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” as Lorenzana admitted during congressional briefings.
