Phl commits to help fight IS

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines made a commitment to the United Nations to do its part in the international efforts to fight the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) operating in Iraq and Syria.

Speaking at the General Debate during the 69th session of the UN General Assembly on Sept. 29, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said the IS and the Ebola outbreak are the two present-day scourges.

“The Philippines condemns the war crimes and crimes against humanity being perpetrated by IS,” Del Rosario said.

He added that the Philippines supported Security Council Resolution 2178 on foreign terrorist fighters adopted on September 24 because “we believe that resolute and immediate action is necessary to suppress this group.”

“As a responsible member of the international community, the Philippines will do its part in the global efforts to thwart IS and their false ideologies,” Del Rosario said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said on September 18 that the Philippines would do its part to help an international coalition to fight IS without necessarily sending troops.

US Ambassador Philip Goldberg said the US and the Philippines are watching very closely the possible recruitment of foreign fighters in the country by IS, sometimes also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

He said the US government is concerned about the recruitment of foreign fighters as jihadists who have gone to the Middle East from the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and other countries.

Areas for possible recruitment, he said, also include countries in Southeast Asia – the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The DFA said Philippine security and intelligence authorities have commenced the monitoring of possible recruitment by ISIS and other foreign extremist groups in the country.

On the Ebola outbreak, the Philippines recognizes its risks on global health and its impact on development.

“As such, we will support, based on our capacity, the international community’s efforts in arresting the spread of this scourge through the auspices of the World Health Organization,” he said.

Meanwhile, authorities in Maguindanao have refuted on Tuesday insinuations that local Muslim residents are being recruited by members of a group affiliated with the IS now destabilizing Iraq and Syria and declared an enemy of the United States and its allies.

Members of the Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC), led by its chair Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, Brig. Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan of the 6th Infantry Division, and Senior Superintendent Rudelio Jocson announced during the council meeting last Tuesday in Buluan town that the local Islamic communities remain in control and that there are no indications of any IS recruitment activities in any of the 36 towns in the province.

The police and military are still investigating the report that ethnic Maranaws have allegedly pledged allegiance to the ISIS during a congregational prayer in a mosque in Marawi City two weeks ago.

The worshipers were also said to have raised the IS black flag during the event.

Jocson, Maguindanao provincial police director, said the security officials are now more concerned with clan wars involving local Maguindanaon families.

“All of our Islamic preachers in the province are moderate Sunni Muslims so there is no way extremists can influence ethnic Maguindanaon folks to even just sympathize with the ISIS,” Mangudadatu told reporters.

Military officials present in the meeting said last month’s announcement by the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) that it has joined the IS was just a propaganda to gain media mileage and promote its plan to set up an Islamic state in Mindanao.

Some members of the newly organized Juris consult of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, among them graduates of the Al-Azhar University in Egypt and the World Islamic Call University in Libya, have earlier branded as un-Islamic the activities of the IS, which brutally took over non-Muslim enclaves in Syria and Iraq in recent months.

“Nowhere in the sacred Qur’an can you find a teaching encouraging Muslims to kill non-Muslims just like that. Warfare in Islam, in fact, is only strictly for defense of land, race and religion, not in form of aggression. Killing of innocent non-Muslim religious leaders and their followers and destroying their places of worship is forbidden in Islam,” said Alzad Sattar, ARMM’s undersecretary for Islamic education. With Perseus Echeminada, John Unson