The Philippines yesterday said it would initiate the creation of a regional anti-terrorist coalition to support looming U.S. retaliation against attackers that partly destroyed the Pentagon and reduced the World Trade Centre towers to rubble last week.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo met with congressional leaders and her Cabinet to come up with a specific response to the U.S. global war on terrorism.

Officials agreed that Manila's help was both a moral imperative and a diplomatic obligation, stressing that snubbing the campaign would have negative consequences.

Arroyo, in the meeting, backed a proposal by House Speaker Jose de Venecia to "immediately initiate the organisation of a regional anti-terrorist coalition consisting of the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia," presidential spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said.

The three South-East Asian neighbours are themselves facing their own Muslim separatist problems.

Arroyo, meanwhile, bypassed Congress and passed a resolution allowing the Philippines to respond to the UN Security Council's call to combat international terrorism.

"There is no need for Congressional approval for whatever support the Philippines would extend to the coalition against terrorism. What is important is the UN resolution as a basis for the government to join the international coalition against terrorism," said Tiglao.

A congressional approval would be needed in cases of a "declaration of a state of war" against a "sovereign nation", said Tiglao, adding the proposed coalition would "merely be a campaign against a terrorist organisation".

At the same time, "the Philippine Constitution allows the President to decide on her own foreign policy in an emergency situation such as what happened in the U.S.," said Tiglao.

The government will not be sending combat troops but engineering battalion and medical teams, Armed Forces spokesman Brig. General Edilberto Adan.

"We will dispatch civil-military teams similar to what we sent to help the UN peace-keeping force during the 1991 Gulf War, in Kosovo in 1998, and in East Timor in 1999," said Adan.

Philippines offered the U.S. use of its two former air and naval bases in Clark in Pampanga and Subic in Zambales, central Luzon even if the U.S. government neither requested for it nor invoked the RP-US Mutual Defence Treaty.

Arroyo came out with the resolution after convening the National Security Council to convince the members of the opposition who are represented in the Council to support her position.
Former presidents Fidel Ramos and Corazon Aquino attended the meeting. The majority and minority leaders of the bicameral Congress also attended the meeting.

Manila Correspondents Jose Maria Fernandez and Arlene Burgos add: Many opposition leaders said they were against the entry of the Philippines in the anti-terrorism alliance, adding that this would jeopardise many overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

"We should first solve the country's problem with terrorists such as the hostage-taking Abu Sayyaf Group," said Senator Rodolfo Biazon.

"The government would be able to help solve international terrorism by eradicating the Abu Sayyaf Group," said Minority Floor Leader Aquilino Pimentel, adding, "The U.S. should help the Philippines eradicate the Abu Sayyaf in Mindanao, southern Philippines.