‘Balikatan’ still on even if Sabaya surrenders

The ongoing joint RP-US "Balikatan" military exercises in Basilan will continue regardless of any surrender feelers from Abu Sayyaf ringleader Aldam Tilao, Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes said yesterday.

"Hindi makakaapekto ‘yan (That will not have any effect). The Balikatan exercises will continue," Reyes said, reacting to reports that Tilao, alias "Abu Sabaya," has sent surrender feelers through Basilan Gov. Wahab Akbar.

Akbar had said another Abu Sayyaf ringleader, Isnilon Hapilon, has also expressed willingness to surrender because of the mounting military pressure against their group.

Tilao’s Basilan-based group supposedly sent the surrender feelers over the weekend as more US Special Forces landed on the island province to participate in the Balikatan exercises and "observe" local military operations against the Abu Sayyaf.

Reyes also allayed fears that the military would launch bombing runs against Abu Sayyaf strongholds in the province as part of the Balikatan exercises.

"We have to be cautious and circumspect about this (bombing operation)," Reyes said, assuring the military would be very selective on the target of any air strike and would consider the presence of civilians in such areas.

Tilao’s band has held hostage over the past nine months American missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham and Filipina nurse Ediborah Yap.

Tilao’s band, which used to be led by Abu Sayyaf overall leader Khaddafi Janjalani who has since abandoned the group, kidnapped the Burnhams from Palawan on May 27 last year and seized Yap from a hospital in Lamitan, Basilan on June 2.

They have been fleeing pursuing government forces since then and the military has decimated their ranks and confined them to a small part of the island, but they continue to evade capture through their mastery of the heavily forested and mountainous terrain.

In a related development, Vice President and Foreign Affairs Secretary Teofisto Guingona Jr. rejected yesterday the proposal of Sen. Blas Ople to stage exercises, patterned after Balikatan, to train the Philippine National Police (PNP) in solving crimes.

"Crime solving can be done without exercises," Guingona said, reacting to Ople’s proposal to help reduce rampant criminality in the country.

Ople, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, urged President Arroyo to seek US assistance in revitalizing the PNP, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and Presidential Security Group (PSG).

Ople said unsolved cases and crimes involving policemen continue to increase, eroding the people’s trust in the police’s capability or willingness to fight crime.

The country "needs a new management program to improve the culture of law enforcement and establish stronger peace in the community," Ople said.

Meanwhile, the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) has given its full support behind the Balikatan exercises, saying it has reinvigorated the campaign against criminality, the proliferation of illegal drugs, kidnapping for ransom, bank robberies and other threats to the peace and security of the country.

LMP national president Ramon Guico Jr. said the LMP’s national directorate, composed of the league’s provincial chapter heads, passed a resolution over the weekend supporting President Arroyo’s decision to allow US forces to "observe" local combat operations.

The LMP also backed the President’s campaign against the Abu Sayyaf and expressed "solidarity behind the government’s campaign to put an end to the abuses and killing orgy of the notorious group that has links to the dreaded al-Qaeda network of terrorist Osama bin Laden."

In passing the resolution, the LMP asked its 1,497 member-municipalities to adopt and implement an action plan against terrorism and extend whatever support to the Balikatan exercises. - With Romel Bagares