This is the 52nd marital law update which marks a whole year since the beginning of the Marawi siege and the subsequent declaration of martial law. A year on how are things? Well there's this:
As government troops pursued the suspected bandits, another clash occurred at 11:45 a.m. Monday. Five suspected bandits and a soldier were killed during the firefight in Sitio Bud Kaha in the village of Maligay, Patikul. Five other persons were wounded.
Brigadier General Cirilito Sobejana, Joint Task Force Sulu commander, said the Abu Sayyaf Group is still holding 12 hostages, including three Indonesians, one Vietnamese and one Dutch. The rest are Filipinos.
Since this event 2 hostages, policewomen were released.
That leaves 10 more hostages. The AFP hopes to wipe out Abu Sayyaf by December.
“There will be more rational timeline but we want to hasten [the Abu Sayyaf menace]since he (Galvez) gave us a co-terminus on his retirement,” Sobejana told reporters.
With “best efforts,” Sobejana said the JTF Sulu would be utilizing all available war materiel, resources, and ground, air and sea mobility to finish the Abu Sayyaf terrorists in Sulu.
Sobejana said there would be “very massive focused military operations” in rescuing the remaining kidnap victims.
As of latest count, Sobejana said there were about 300 ASG members in Sulu.
"There will be a more rational timeline?" Sobejana does not sound very confident in this plan. Remember last year in January when they said this:
Setting dates never works for the AFP.
It's Ramadan again. A symbolic time of year for Muslims some who use it to commit acts of violence like last year's siege which was intended to be launched on the first day of Ramadan.
“The AFP – most especially the Muslims amongst us – is one with the Islamic faith in wishing that this month-long period of penance, prayer, and reflection remind each one us of the value of peace, love, and sense of community, Col. Edgard Arevalo, spokesperson of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said in a statement.
“We wish to exhort our Muslim brethren to be very vigilant, though. The AFP is conscious of the possibility that unscrupulous individuals or groups may be out to sow chaos,” he added.
Now why would there by any individuals or groups seeking to sow chaos during Ramadan? Why not do it during some other month? Because the violence in Mindanao is grounded in religion. Except for the NPA. They have different motivations.
“The NPA terrorists’ statements regarding suspension of tactical offensives cannot be trusted. Either the CPP, NPA, and NDF are not coordinating or their ground commanders are not obeying the directives of their higher organization. Either case, theirs is an organization that is headless and useless,” he said.
The goal of the CPP is the overthrow of the current government to be replaced by themselves. With this evaluation of the organisation by the AFP it sounds like the CPP would be a regular Philippine government which is to say useless.
The annual Balikatan military exercises between the US military and the AFP have come to a close. The result? More preparedness.
“Balikatan has and will continue prepare our armed forces to work together to confront any and all challenges that may jeopardise the mutual defense that we have worked so hard to provide for one another,” said Brig. Gen. Thomas Weidley of US Marine Corps.
“This exercise is a continuation of a very long and fruitful history of cooperation between our two military forces and it helps ensure that we will be ready to stand should to shoulder in defense of our shared democratic values and the international rules based order,” said Michael Klecheski, the US Charge d’ Affairs.
The Balikatan participants also conducted military operations on urban terrain as part of its counterterrorism training.
“This year’s culmination is very timely and relevant to the Armed Forces of the Philippines as we also near the first year of the Marawi siege and its eventual liberation from the hands of the Maute and the ISIS terrorists. Through this event such as this, the AFP is now more ready and more capable to defeat enemies of the state, carrying out with us added learnings and experience,” said AFP chief Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr.
It sounds like the AFP does not share their Commander-in-Chief's sentiments about the US military.
President Rodrigo Duterte said American soldiers can not stand hardships in war zones. "I'm not sure of Americans because the Americans have lost its will to fight. They are all just weapons - cruise missiles, maybe they also have the supersonic thing, "he said onboard BRP Davao del Sur, Casiguran, Aurora on May 15.
"But the boots on the ground, that's going to go there and fight people, people are afraid of America," he said. "I am sad to say but America can not stand hardships."
"The war will go to Afghanistan, after the fight comes home to the Green Zone, the aircon room is like a beautiful bed," he said.
"Not a soldier. If you are a Filipino soldier, then throw a Marine in the sea, do not throw it away. Three days to survive that. American throw you, one hour after, that float. True, "he added.
He also said that America is afraid to kill.
"America fears to kill, afraid to die. That's really true to America. They are deathly afraid of death and they do not want to kill, "he noted. "Only knowing these fools is for human rights and ... So they are deteriorating. They ... What they do there is to send specialist but it is far from the madding crowd. "
Source: https://pcoo.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/051518-Speech-of-President-Rodrigo-Roa-Duterte-during-the-Philippine-Rise-Commemoration.pdf
Duterte is jealous of America's vast array of superior weaponry. It is true that the American military need not have boots on the ground to win a war as they can just push a few buttons thousands of miles away and a drone will do all the work. Or they can launch cruise missiles from ships or fighter jets. But so what? Duterte sounds like a man without a car who is forced to walk everywhere telling a man with a car that he is lazy and afraid to walk and has even lost the will to walk!
Despite being able to win a war by pushing a few buttons it is fundamentally not true that America has lost the will to kill or that American soldiers are cannot stand hardships. His reference to human rights shows as the cause of America's supposed military weakness shows he does not understand the concept of human rights or the strength of the American military. Does he even believe what he is saying or is he trying to look good for China?
Even though these military exercises were a success the PH-US military relationship is not all rosy. In some aspects its frozen.
Without a fully implemented EDCA, the Philippines will likely lose its maritime rights in the South China Sea, either by force or the threat of force from China, and the United States will be seen as a paper tiger unable to protect its allies or defend freedom of the seas.
The situations at Antonio Bautista and Mactan Air Bases are even more worrying. Under the Duterte administration, it appears that plans to expand Philippine armed forces facilities and build EDCA locations at those sites have been deprioritized in favor of more ambitious upgrades to the adjoining civilian airports (which share runways with the military bases) under the government’s push to boost tourism.
Changes to the regional security environment in the four years since EDCA was signed have made Article 1 of the agreement more prescient than negotiators intended. Without robust implementation, both sides will find it increasingly difficult to “maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack,” at least within the South China Sea. China has constructed three large air and naval bases in the contested Spratly Islands, which are now primed for deployments of combat aircraft and have reportedly been equipped with surface-to-air and anti-ship cruise missiles. Every ship or plane near the Spratly Islands is now operating inside Chinese missile range, and will soon be within the combat radius of Chinese fighter jets.
The immediate fault lies with the Duterte administration, but American policymakers have had a role to play as well. By failing to publicly affirm that an attack on Philippine troops or vessels in the South China Sea would fall within the scope of the Mutual Defense Treaty (as the text of the treaty indicates it should), the United States has repeatedly called into question its willingness to live up to its commitment to an ally. Proponents of that ambiguity privately argue that keeping the treaty’s scope vague avoids provoking Beijing and could be quickly remedied with high-level public statements in case of a crisis. But in the meantime, it breeds concerns about U.S. reliability, makes it difficult for defenders of the alliance in Manila to make their case, and reduces the likelihood that EDCA will be implemented as originally envisioned. And without EDCA, the credibility of the U.S. treaty commitment to the Philippines, along with broader U.S. goals in the South China Sea, will be undermined by simple distance. China will be present; the United States will not.
In the Philippines promoting tourism takes precedence over national security commitments.
The threat of China grows each day. The latest is that China now has bombers capable of being equipped with nuclear bombs running exercises in the SCS.
How long until actual nuclear bombs are being housed in the Spratly islands?
China's military activities in the SCS and refuse to respect the UN ruling are very relevant to the situation in Mindanao and the AFP's efforts to secure the area because it diverts resources. Remember Lorenzana said this just after the UN ruling in 2016:
“If we can only get China to respect the ruling, it would be a big load from our back,” he said. “We could probably devote more of our resources to pressing problems at home. “
https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/rich-media/139836-delfin-lorenzana-philippine-territorial-defense-priority
Australia is also ending in war games with the AFP.
The Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom) through the Naval Forces Western Mindanao (Navforwem) and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is conducting the third Combined Maritime Security Activity to enhance capability against piracy, kidnapping and terror.
"Piracy, kidnapping, and terror" means Abu Sayyaf. But let's not kid ourselves. China is also a threat and any maritime activities between the AFP and any nation will not neglect the threat posed by China in the SCS.
So how are things a year on? Same old same old. No siege obviously. No big conflict. Just here an encounter and there an encounter like before. The dead pile up slowly one by one. What does it all mean? What is the AFP's assessment of the situation?
“It would take years for [the] Marawi incident to happen again, that’s why… we are breaking the generational link or generational process so that we can counter yung (the) ISIS narrative,” he told reporters at Camp Aguinaldo.
“The implementation of martial law hastened the arrest and also the neutralization of many threat groups…Yung magandang (The good) impact is we gained so much support from the people,” he added.
Galvez could not say, however, if martial law would be extended anew when it ends later this year.
“I cannot predict. It’s a political decision. For us, it has a very good significant impact in terms of countering terrorism in Mindanao. And not only terrorism but also criminalities,” he said.
The AFP says martial law has been a needful tool in combating not only terrorism but also crime. Indeed it has been reported that crime has dropped in various cities in Mindanao up on the implementation of martial law. That is how violent Mindanao is. So violent that martial law is needed to combat crime. And what happens once martial law is lifted? Will crime flood the streets once more? But the purpose of martial law is not a criminal deterrent. It is repeated over and over that the people of Mindanao love and welcome martial law because it makes the region safer and that those in Luzon who oppose it know nothing of the situation in Mindanao. I say Mindanaoans don't realise that the welcoming of such a drastic measure as martial law to curb crime is a bad thing and indicates that their area is in a most woeful state.
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