「日刊まにら新聞」ウェブ

The Philippine military will no longer give any deadline to clear Marawi City of the Islamic State-inspired Maute Terror Group after failing to meet at least three targets government officials, including President Rodrigo Duterte, had cited.

In the "Mindanao Hour" briefing Wednesday, Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla admitted the offensive operations by the military against the terrorists were not that easy.

"So it will entail a bit of time before we clear every house of any armed element," Padilla said as he asked for patience.

"The guidance of the Chief of Staff is to ensure we are able to save innocent lives," he said.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, also administrator of martial law, which was declared in the whole of Mindanao on May 23, earlier eyed to clear Marawi of the Maute group by June 2.

After the military failed to meet the first deadline, Duterte said during an interview on June 3 by reporters in Cagayan de Oro City, he hoped to end the problem within three days. But this was not met.

The last target set by the military to "liberate" Marawi was on June 12, Independence Day. But while the government troopers were able to raise the Philippine flag in the conflict-torn city, skirmishes between the soldiers and Maute militants continued.

Meanwhile, on those netizens who were apparently running out of patience and have been wondering why it has been taking long to resolve the problem in Marawi, Padilla said, "our challenge, if you want to help the country, join the ROTC (Reserves Officers' Training Corps) so that you can fully understand what has been happening and you can develop the love for the country and be members of the Armed Forces in the future."

He assured that the military would not bomb any mosque despite allegedly being used as hideout of the Maute.

"There's a commitment on the part of the Armed Forces and the Chief of Staff himself, we will not bomb any mosques. But we call upon all religious leaders to more or less dissuade any of those that they may reach in those mosques from using those areas of worship as havens for this armed confrontation," he said.

Padilla clarified four villages or about 20 percent of Marawi have remained problematic, contrary to the military's earlier statement of 10 percent.

"There's this thing called fog of war when everything is all breaking loose and then everything is very fluid, the reporting system may not be very accurate as exactly as we would want. So now that we have lulls in the fighting, and we can more or less cross-check our data, there is a decision now to be more specific that the use of barangays would be better," he explained. Celerina Monte/DMS