MANILA, Philippines - The Department of National Defense will use its international links to verify reports that extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is recruiting Filipinos in Mindanao.
Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said the information about the group’s supposed recruitment efforts came as a surprise for the military.
“They were surprised because they did not monitor such activities or movements of Filipinos in the southern part of the Philippines,” Gazmin told radio dzRH yesterday.
“Right now, we are verifying through our international network if there are indeed movements in the areas mentioned,” he added.
ISIS has been slaughtering several non-Muslims in Iraq as part of its goal to form an Islamic state in the Middle East.
Early this month, former President Fidel Ramos told ANC that about 100 young Filipino Muslims went to Iraq to train with the ISIS.
Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte later revealed receiving information there were people traveling to the Middle East to join a war.
A video clip showing Filipino lawless groups Abu Sayyaf and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters pledging alliance to ISIS also surfaced online.
The military, however, has yet to confirm the alleged alliance between the local bandits and the ISIS.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, expressed concern over the fate of Christians in Iraq and Syria under the ISIS.
Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) president Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas yesterday appealed to the country’s bishops to initiate a collection from the faithful to address the needs of Christians suffering in war-torn Iraq and Syria.
Villegas said the collections will be sent by the CBCP to the ecclesiastical jurisdictions of Syria and Iraq.
“While we have our own projects in the Philippines, we cannot put these ahead of the suffering of Christians in that troubled part of our world,” he said.
Villegas said the Christians from these countries have not only been evicted from their homes but their places of worship – some of them thousands of years old – have been razed by militants.