EDITORIAL - Crushing the Abu Sayyaf

Abu Sayyaf bandits will be pursued until they are exhausted, and then they will be crushed, President Aquino declared yesterday, a day after an ambush in Basilan left six soldiers dead.

If state security forces had delivered on this promise every time it was given by a commander-in-chief in the past years, by now the Abu Sayyaf should have been crushed to a pulp. Instead the bandits continue to sow terror in Basilan and Sulu, targeting teachers and other public servants and kidnapping foreigners and local businessmen for ransom.

This time, following the deaths of six soldiers led by 22-year-old Lt. Cresencio Corpuz Jr., President Aquino announced the deployment of several battalions to hunt down the bandits. He said that at the same time, the government is rushing the completion of a circumferential road that is expected to stimulate commercial activity and bring development to the hinterlands of Basilan.

The Abu Sayyaf was reportedly set up by government security forces originally to infiltrate Islamic separatist groups. As with other such groups, however, the Abu Sayyaf eventually went rogue and turned against its handlers. From the early days of the group’s deadly attacks, national leaders and security forces have acknowledged that a military approach alone would not end the threat. Yet the government’s response has been largely confined precisely to the military aspect.

That circumferential road has been on the drawing board since US forces helped flush out Abu Sayyaf terrorists led by Khadaffy Janjalani from their jungle strongholds in Basilan in 2002. US soldiers helped upgrade the airstrip in the province and install basic infrastructure such as artesian wells.

Both the national and local governments, however, failed to consolidate the gains of the so-called Basilan model of counterinsurgency. The bandits eventually returned to the province, even as another faction gained strength and reaped enormous profits from ransom kidnapping in Sulu. Certain officials were even accused of being in cahoots with Abu Sayyaf kidnappers. These days security forces are trying to rescue more than 10 mostly foreign captives held by the bandits in Sulu.

The promised opening of the circumferential road in Basilan could pave the way for the long-envisioned development of the province. If the administration, now in its last two minutes, wants to make a dent against the Abu Sayyaf scourge, the momentum of development must be sustained.