THE recent bomb explosion along the roadside in Marawi, Lanao del Sur, which hurt nine government forces, was not “contrived” by the military, a spokesperson of the Armed of the Philippines (AFP) said Friday.
Speaking to reporters, AFP spokesman Brigadier General Restituto Padilla dismissed rumors that the Marawi incident was staged by the government forces to eventually declare Martial Law.
“In reference tot hat roadside IED (improvised explosive device) bombing, I’d like to state that whatever news came out viral in social media coming from a certain alleged youth group is nothing but propaganda,” Padilla said.
“The incident did [happen] and actually happened, and was not something that was contrived or made up by the armed forces,” he added.
Padilla was reacting to a Moro youth group’s claim that there was no ambush nor IED explosion in Marawi.
Drieza Lininding, vice chair of the Bangsamoro National Movement for Peace and Development based in Lanao del Sur, said he asked residents around the area where the incident allegedly happened but they denied that an ambush took place.
“We went house to house to investigate, but the residents denied that an ambush took place,” Lininding said on his Facebook account.
“I asked them (residents) if they [saw] any fragment or damaged car, they all [said] none and no one was wounded,” he added.
But Padilla maintained that the AFP was not making up stories. He, however, admitted that there was a lapse in the military’s security.
“Our men were hurt in a roadside bombing and we admit that there was a lapse in security along that line when a certain member of some terrorist groups in the area may have been able to dump a piece of bag on the side of the road where they knew the convoy would be passing,” the AFP spokesperson said.
“The convoy was an easy target because it was marked vehicle and they were moving in broad daylight so those are things that we are closely looking at and learning from so that nothing of that will be repeated again in the future.” (Sunnex)