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The military pounded rebel Muslim positions in southern Philippines
as fighting escalated there, eyewitnesses said on Monday.
It let off a barrage of artillery and mortar
fire from a muddy mound next to a highway, while helicopter gunships
swooped low over trees firing rockets, Agence France-Presse said.
It was the biggest flare-up of violence between
the two sides since August 4, when the Supreme Court ordered the
government to suspend plans to establish a broadened and independent
Muslim homeland in Mindanao.
Despite the intense fighting in North Cotabato
province, President Gloria Arroyo declared her support for
federalism to ensure peace in the country’s South.
In a speech at a luncheon for visiting President
Pascual Couchepin of Switzerland, President Arroyo said she was
advocating “federalism as a way to ensure long-lasting peace in
Mindanao.”
According to her, federalism has worked for
Switzerland. She cited Switzerland’s traditionally strong ties
with the Philippines.
“We thank the Swiss government not only for
the values of freedom and civil rights that are enshrined in its
culture but also for its willingness to share in its experience of
federalism through the Institute of Federalism located in Fribourg
in Switzerland which has been helping us do our studies on this form
of government,” Mrs. Arroyo said.
Although pushing for federalism, the President
said any amendements to the Constitution should happen after her
term ends in 2010.
Press Secretary Jesus Dureza told a news
conference that federalism in Mindanao through the establishment of
the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity was “the way forward” but
conceded that it would take a long process.
But Dureza said that although Mrs. Arroyo
supports Charter change, or “Cha-cha,” to pave the way for the
juridical entity, the move is not meant to extend the term of the
Chief Executive beyond 2010.
Besides, he added, Cha-cha will have to pass
through Congress.
The restraining order from the High Tribunal saw
a number of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) insurgents grab
mainly Christian villages and towns in North Cotabato, where
fighting is heaviest in the past two days.
The military said 1,500 MILF rebels have “dug
in” in remote villages in the province, and clashes have forced
nearly 130,000 residents from their homes and into government
refugee centers.
Dozens of civilians, mainly women and children,
could be seen trudging along the main highway, carrying bundles of
clothes and pots and pans on their backs as they fled the fighting.
“Fighting between government troops and a
breakaway group of the MILF will not disrupt the ongoing peace
process,” presidential peace adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said
in a statement.
One soldier was killed and 12 others wounded
with “reliable reports” that seven MILF fighters had been slain,
said the military’s vice chief of staff, Lieutenant General
Cardozo Luna.
Authorities have closed the main road linking
North Cotabato and Davao City and set up military checkpoints.
Luna said the military operation was not
directed against the MILF in general, but a group headed by MILF
Commander Umbra Kato, who had defied orders of main rebel leaders.
Armed MILF fighters occupied villages in at
least five towns in North Cotabato last week after the Supreme Court
issued its order to suspend a draft homeland agreement between the
government and the MILF.
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said that
“operations will not cease, until the five towns are cleared.”
The supposedly 12,000-strong MILF has been
waging a nearly 40-year guerrilla campaign for a separate Islamic
state in the south of largely Christian Philippines.
The rebels signed a ceasefire with the
government in 2003 to open the way for peace talks, and both sides
said in July they had completed a draft accord for recognition of
the MILF’s “ancestral domain” in Mindanao, plus Palawan
province in western Philippines.
Local officials in Mindanao opposed the
agreement and filed a suit with the Supreme Court, leading to a
suspension of the draft pact and raising new tensions with the MILF.
Despite the fighting, local elections in the
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) went ahead as planned on
Monday to elect the governor, vice governor and 24 assemblymen.
The MILF had asked that the polls be reset until
the current peace negotiations could be concluded but Congress said
it did not have time to call the voting off.
There were incidents of MILF members snatching
ballots on the island of Basilan but it was not clear if this was
related to the decision to go ahead with the balloting.
The ARMM was formed in 1996 after a peace deal
between another rebel Muslim group, the Moro National Liberation
Front (MNLF), and the government was signed.
ARMM comprises the mainly Muslim provinces of
Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao but not
North Cotabato.
-- Angelo S. Samonte, Jefferson Antiporda and AFP
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