After failing to meet two previous deadlines, June 2 and 26, the government said it wasn’t going to set another one.
But they were “hoping” to end the ongoing siege in Marawi, now entering its sixth week of fighting, by the President Rodrigo Duterte’s second State of the Nation Address (SONA).
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said he would no longer set deadlines to end the siege, but added that Duterte would be more comfortable delivering his second SONA knowing that government forces have flushed out all militants from the city.
Over 400 have been killed in the clashes between government forces and the IS-linked Maute group.
“[That] is one of the things that I have asked the commanders on the ground, that if they could terminate the conflict there before the President goes on his SONA,” Lorenzana said in a news briefing in Malacañang.
Lorenzana said, while the government desires to end the siege immediately, it should not come at the cost of the lives of government fighters.
“If I were there, I would like the job to be finished immediately. [But the problem is], the enemy is also very wily and very resourceful,” he said.
The military earlier said victory was “irreversible” for the military as government troops inched their way towards terrorist-held areas in the city.
However, the presence of booby traps and fear that the militants would harm their hostages are slowing government troops’ advance.
“[This] kind of problem is very difficult. And since it is urban fighting, a lot of our troops there are not prepared [for it]… They are learning as they go along on how to fight in this built-up area,” Lorenzana said.
Armed Forces spokesperson Restituto Padilla, meanwhile, said the heavy losses suffered by the Abu Sayyaf in Marawi, as well as intensified maritime patrol of the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia in the Sulu and Celebes seas, have affected the group’s kidnap-for-ransom operations.
“Any abduction in the high seas was one of the principal criminal activities that they have been doing and that we wanted to address, something that was a cause of national embarrassment,” Padilla said in the same news briefing.
“May I ask you, have you read anything of that sort happening lately? For more than three months, I guess, we have not heard anything.”
Lorenzana said 66 of the over 200 suspected terrorists and their supporters listed on the defense department’s arrest orders have been caught.
with reports from ABS-CBN News
