It looks like the siege of Marawi by the Maute terrorists is going to drag on longer than the timeline given by government forces. Authorities said they would be able toclear the city by Friday. That is today.
Yesterday, 400 Philippine Marines took off from Villamor Air Base to reinforce government troops battling the Maute. This is an indication the government won’t be able to meet its self-imposed deadline to dislodge Maute from the beleaguered city.
Holding back the government troops’ advance are Maute snipers who are using hostages to be used as human shields. On Wednesday 10 soldiers were mistakenly killed by air strike carried out by government planes helping troops on the ground flush out the Maute marauders.
At the pace fighting is still going on, it might take government forces longer to free Marawi than they did when Nur Misuari’s Moro National Liberation Front laid siege to Zamboanga City in 2013. The government then didn’t have to declare martial law.
This is the view expressed by Magdalo Party-List Rep. Gary Alejano who claimed the government could harness the full force of its military power without declaring martial law in the whole of Mindanao. “An all-out military operation could have sufficed,” said Alejano whose impeachment complaint against President Duterte was thrown out by the House of Representatives for insufficiency in form and consequently in substance.
President Duterte, on the other hand said no one recommended that he declare martial law in Mindanao. We have to believe Digong on this one. He had been toying with the idea of martial law even early in the first three months of his presidency . The siege of Marawi by the Mautes was the excuse waiting to happen. Besides, the siege was too close to Duterte’s Davao where his daughter Sara is city mayor. While there is no lockdown in Davao, entry and exit from Davao City is so tight that tension is also running high.
I’ll have to side with the President in his declaration of martial law in Mindanao. Lawless violence, rebellion and various groups like the MILF, MNLF and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters want to establish a separate state. These groups are apart from the criminal Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom gang. The MILF has offered to help the government open a peace corridor for refugees from Marawi that would give them safe conduct to flee Marawi for Iligan City and nearby safe areas.
The offer of the MILF to help the government in Marawi should be taken with caution, according to former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. To accept MILF assistance, he said , would be according official recognition to the MILF which wants to set up a separate state.
Why is the MILF not aligning itself with the Mautes? A land-grabber does want another one grabbing land in Mindanao it wants for itself. The Mautes—who have identified themselves with the international terrorist group ISIS seeking to set up a caliphate in this part of world—could marginalize the MILF.
Enrile also expressed the view that a joint session of Congress should have been called to review the President’s declaration of martial law. This, he said, is according to Article 7, Section 18 of the 1987 Constitution. Enrile is considered the architect and administrator of martial law during the Marcos years. He cited the difference between Marcos’ martial law and that of Duterte. In order to fully implement it, Enrile said he was placed in charge by Marcos to study its ramifications and the possible resistance to it by the populace. He said it took him six months starting in the latter part of 1969 to put all the pieces together. To enforce martial law, Congress was abolished: newspapers, TV and radio stations were shut down and the courts were not allowed to function. Aside from being limited in scope—only in Mindanao and its duration lasting only 60 days—Duterte’s declaration allows Congress, the courts and the press to function.
The discovery of communist weapons landing on the coast of Isabela when the MV Karagatan ran aground because of stormy seas was the final raison d’etre for Marcos to declare martial law
Constraints on martial law were incorporated by former President Cory Aquino whose revolutionary government wanted to make sure martial law won’t be subject to abuse. Again.
Refugees who have flocked to Iligan now number at least 96,000 according to latest government estimate. Some have evacuated to Cagayan de Oro City . This flood of refugees has given rise to the word “bakwits,” the new term for evacuees.