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ZAMBOANGA CITY: US peace and development efforts in the Philippines
is gaining ground and making progress in the fight against
terrorism.
US Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, who visited Manila on Monday was in Zamboanga City
over the weekend and met with US soldiers training local troops
here, according to the American Forces Press Service of the US
Department of Defense.
It said Mullen saw firsthand how the US
interagency fight is making progress in the Philippines.
Mullen was at the Western Mindanao Command in
Zamboanga City where a bomb attack last week damaged the office of
the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and a Filipino
military mutual fund near the Edwin Andrews Air Force base.
Filipino and US military officials briefed
Mullen about the security situation in the southern region, where
security are battling al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group and the
Indonesian militant Jemaah Islamiya, blamed for May 29 bombing here
that killed three people and injured more than a dozen more.
Mullen later met with US soldiers who are part
of the Joint Special Operations Task Force—Philippines and saw how
the USAID is helping the Philippine government battle an insurgency.
The report quoted Mullen and US Defense
Secretary Robert Gates as saying US civilian agencies, such as the
USAID are important assets in the effort to combat terrorism and
both have testified before US Congress on the need for more people
and money for these agencies.
Mullen said the US is helping the Philippine
military address a “classic insurgency,” noting that in doing
so, it’s as important to build a school, rebuild a bridge or host
a medical clinic as it is to kill an extremist. “I’ve come to
believe that we’re never going to capture them all, [and] we’re
never going to kill them all,” he said. “It’s going to be the
people who will take back their territory - the people that gets fed
up with it.”
USAID spends $50 million to $60 million a year
in the Philippines, with 60 percent coming to this impoverished area
while the US military aid is pegged at roughly $5 million to $6
million a year, the report said.
It said USAID works with Philippine national and
local leaders to develop projects that benefit all the people. The
agency has financed digging wells, building roads, rebuilding
bridges and constructing schools.
The agency is financing improvements to the
airports at Tawi-Tawi and in Sulu – both of which also benefit the
Philippine armed forces.
Mullen did not speak to the Philippine media and
the local military also refused to give details of his visit here.
Mullen arrived in Zamboanga City with Philippine military chief Gen.
Alexander Yano from Singapore where they attended an Asia security
conference. Mullen and Yano held a conference in Manila on Monday.
-- Al Jacinto
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