“As city mayor of Angeles, I am fully supporting the President’s declaration of Martial Law in the entire island of Mindanao for 60 days. Terrorist groups operating in Southern Mindanao must be destroyed once and for all before it (sic) could extend its (sic) nefarious activities in other areas of Mindanao and other parts of the country,” Pamintuan said in a statement.
Pamintuan said “the President’s declaration is in the best interest of the country. It is required to ensure public safety, and to restore peace and order.”
He noted that “the Maute Group has joined forces with the Abu Sayaf Group to form a terrorist alliance aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and this group is responsible for the recent attack on the City of Marawi which resulted to mass evacuations of civilians.”
“It is also the group that planned terrorist activities in Bohol and Palawan in the Visayas and Luzon, respectively,” he noted.
But the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) issued separate statements objecting to martial law in Mindanao.
“Mindanao is the second biggest island and home to one fourth of the country’s population, both of the Moro people, Lumad national minorities and other struggling masses. Declaring a Mindanao- wide Martial Rule only puts innocent civilians at risk of state-perpetrated human rights violations. Martial law is not justified nor the solution”, said KMP secretary general Antonio Flores.
“This is a pretext to escalating abuses of the state forces and attacks versus civilians. We need to remain vigilant and condemn Duterte’s Martial Law declaration,” Flores said.
On the other hand, Pamalakaya said martial law in Mindanao “will subject unarmed and ordinary civilians to more human rights abuses, warrantless arrests and filing of trumped up charges perpetrated by the state forces.”
“It will also make the civilian communities a battle ground between the government forces and their alleged ‘enemies’, making the civilians as collateral casualties,” Pamalakaya chairman Fernando Hicap said.
