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Sunday, February 23, 2003
Palace belittles authority of Pentagon official
By Joshua Dancel
MANILA -- Malacaņang Saturday denied anew the erroneous statement of an unnamed Pentagon official regarding combat operations in southern Philippines involving American troops.
Armed Forces officials in Jolo attempted to allay Muslims fears about the impending deployment of US troops in the area and their reported participation in combat operation.
Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye also belittled the credibility of the unnamed Pentagon official being quoted by the international news agencies carrying the reported item.
"Like what we said allowing the Americans to fight in Sulu in actual combat will violate the constitution," Bunye added.
We will make it clear again, all operations here must be under the supervision of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and there will be no aggressive combat role for the foreign troops," Bunye said.
Bunye belittled the authority of this unnamed Pentagon official, who later turned out to be Col. Jeff Davis, to announce anything about the Balikatan 03-1 exercises in Mindanao.
"Who is Col. Davis anyway? What authority has he to speak on the Balikatan?" Bunye told Sun.Star.
However, Bunye said the wrong announcement made by someone who claimed to be a representative of the Pentagon should not be a reason to disrupt the smooth relationship the country has with the Pentagon.
"There is no need to pick a fight with Pentagon over this," he said.
However, he said should the international news would keep on harping about the news item he described as "kuryente," (a local word for announcing a false news) "we will make a stronger denial."
As such, he said senators and other lawmakers trying to ride on the issue should stop doing so. "Our legislators should stop riding on the issue because in the first place this so-called unnamed source has no credibility at all to speak on the exercises," he said.
This as Senator Aquilino Pimentel continued his tirade against Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, blaming him for crafting a joint military exercise that will allow American soldiers join Philippine forces in combat operations in Sulu and Zamboanga.
Pimentel, speaking at the Mindanao Summit of Muslim Leaders in Davao city Saturday, said the forthcoming Balikatan 03-1 is against the Constitution because foreign troops will participate in actual combat.
"To me, this is the most idiotic, stupid and crazy idea that the Department of National Defense of this country can ever conceive of," Pimentel said.
"Secretary Reyes should be held responsible for the expected scenario of mayhem and bloodshed," he added, referring to the imminent backlash from among the Tausugs in Sulu.
The senator said he believes in the Pentagon more than Malacaņang, which earlier denied the leading US newspapers' report.
Pimentel's blast drew cheers from around 300 participants of the Summit.
Pimentel has been hitting Reyes since last week when the military launched an offensive against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front strongholds in Pikit, North Cotabato.
He blamed Reyes for the onslaught which displaced thousands of village folks, saying the military offensive was carried on for days despite a Malacaņang order of a ceasefire.
On the other hand, Secretary Reyes in meetings with local officials and community leaders in Jolo, reiterated that US soldiers would only be assisting and advising local troops in the hunt for Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.
Some of the residents attending a forum in the provincial capital remained unconvinced, concerned about the effects the deployment of 1,750 US troops would have on the strife-torn island, which is rife with armed Muslim insurgencies.
Reyes said details for the US troop deployment had not yet been finalized, but Filipino soldiers would be "assisted by American equipment and technology" including helicopters in hunting Abu Sayyaf, a group with alleged ties to the al-Qaeda terror network.
Several town mayors said they welcomed the promise of US development aid, while other residents expressed opposition to the US presence.
Hamsali Jamali, president of the Sulu State College, said there were still lingering resentments over the Americans' brutal subjugation of the Muslims of Jolo in the early 1900s when the Philippines was turned into a US colony.
Other Jolo residents warned of suicide attacks similar to those of the "juramentados" or Muslim fanatics of the 1900s who set out to kill as many foreign troops or Christians as possible before being killed themselves.
Southern Command chief Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya said the US troops would have their own defenses and would be allowed to fight back if attacked.
"We should not reopen old wounds," Reyes appealed.
US Special Forces recently arrived in Zamboanga City to help local troops improve their strategies against the Abu Sayyaf.
The guerrillas have killed two American hostages in recent years and are blamed for an October bombing that killed a US soldier and two Filipinos in Zamboanga City.
The group still holds three Indonesian seamen and four Filipino Christian preachers hostage in Jolo.
Philippine and US troops in Zamboanga City on Saturday attended memorial services to pay tribute to 10 US soldiers who died one year ago when their MH-47 Chinook helicopter crashed during a night exercise.
"Let this gathering also remind us to strengthen further our resolve to continue the just cause which these 10 men left off," Abaya told the assembled mourners at the services in a small chapel at the military base.
"We have to finally put an end to this evil of terrorism." (With Charles Raymond A. Maxey of Sun.Star Davao) |
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