Southern Mindanao on alert for spillover of Marawi siege

LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines – Apprehensive about a possible spillover to other areas, local officials in Maguindanao yesterday called for an immediate solution to the ongoing strife in Marawi City.

Maguindanao provincial peace and order council presiding chairman Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu said he is most worried about the safety of innocent villagers in Marawi City, now fleeing their homes.

Mangudadatu said the provincial security council, whose members include top military and police officials in the province, sympathizes with the city’s residents.

Marawi City is the capital of Lanao del Sur, a component province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and a hotbed of fanatical Islamic militancy.

“We condemn these attacks by extremists. We share with the pain being felt now by the people in Marawi City,” Mangudadatu said yesterday.

Efforts to address the security problems besetting Marawi City, however, must not focus on military and police actions alone, according to Mangudadatu.

“The siege of Marawi City is an eye-opener, something that tells us we need to work harder in propagating a culture of peace among our constituents through academic interventions,” he said, emphasizing the need to also tap clerics in the barrios in addressing religious extremism now spreading in the adjoining Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur provinces.

“Education is one of the best solutions to fanatical, misguided Islamic militancy,” Mangudadatu said.

In Zamboanga City and adjacent island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi that are known to have strong presence of the Abu Sayyaf group, government forces have been placed under heightened alert to prevent possible spillover of the ongoing terror attacks in Marawi City.

Zamboanga Mayor Ma. Isabelle Climaco-Salazar said security has been in place over the city, including vital installations, to prevent any attack, even by sympathizers of the terrorist group to divert attention of the military forces. – With Roel Pareño, Gilbert Bayoran, Jose Rodel Clapano