|
There is no letting down of guards on the part of the military as it
stays on “active defense posture” in dealing with the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao, Armed Forces Chief
Lieutenant Gen. Alexander Yano said Thursday.
According to Yano, active defense means that
apart from protecting themselves (soldiers), they are also
protecting their immediate peripherals.
“When troops are in such kind of posture, it
doesn’t mean that they will just wait at the their detachment
until they are attacked. They would have to clear their immediate
surroundings,” Yano noted.
“The commanders are doing well because they
are able to balance their actions with the strategic policies at the
highest levels,” Yano added.
Authorities, however, are not in a hostile mode
as it is poised to bring the recent case of attack by Muslim rebels
before the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH)
of the MILF.
“The government will also rely on CCCH to keep
things from spilling over, or from preventing the incidents to get
worse. We appeal to the MILF to retrain its forces from harassing
the armed forces through violating the ceasefire agreement,”
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said.
Teodoro recognized that there could be plenty of
reasons behind the MILF attacks such as sabotaging the peace talks,
pressuring the government for an early resolution of the agreement
or to disrupt the upcoming election in the Autonomous Region For
Muslim Mindanao.
But Teodoro is not tolerating such reasons,
saying that the MILF still violated the ceasefire agreement and
therefore, a case should be filed before the coordinating committee.
-- Jefferson Antiporda
|
