Duterte willing to extend martial law if troops ask for it

President Rodrigo Duterte / INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

If government troops would ask to extend martial law to address problems in Mindanao, President Rodrigo Duterte would not hesitate to go to Congress and ask for another 60 days.

Speaking at the Manila Hotel on Wednesday evening, Duterte said he wants the conflict to be over soon but his decision on whether or not to prolong martial law in Mindanao would depend on what the forces on the ground tell him.

READ: Duterte vows to restore Marawi glory

It is more than a month now since the President declared martial law in Mindanao for 60 days on May 23, following attacks by pro-Islamic State extremists in Marawi.

“When they say everybody is safe, and everybody is free to roam around Mindanao and he will be alive for the next 24 hours, and then I would ask them, ‘do you think it’s time to lift the martial law?’” Duterte said at the 140th founding anniversary of the Philippine Chinese Charitable Association, Inc.

The troops should know better than him, he said, noting that he was no field officer.

“If they say, ‘don’t do it yet,’ then there’s nothing we can do. Now, for the 60 days, then I will go to Congress. Another 60 days…. give me another 60 days, but maybe I’d be able to eliminate all of them,” he said.

But he also said the situation weighs heavy on him, especially when he reads the reports about the dead and the wounded in the conflict.

“And I feel, even if it’s right or wrong, the burden of guilt. I think about those who lost fathers, who lost mothers. So if it could be hurried up, I want this to be over,” he said.

Duterte also explained that he declared martial law in Mindanao following the Marawi attack because government troops told him the situation was “critical,” and foreign fighters were already coming in as part of a plan to establish a caliphate in the country.

If purely local terrorists had been involved, he would not have resorted to martial rule, he said.

“If the terrorists were only local, I wouldn’t have declared martial law. But since they were already coming here because of their dream to establish a caliphate, a kingdom in Southeast Asia, I said, ‘this is dangerous,” he explained.

The military earlier said eight foreign fighters— two Saudi nationals, two Malaysians, two Indonesians, a Yemeni, and a Chechen— had been killed in the clashes in Marawi.

Duterte also said Wednesday that he had ordered government forces to shoot dead those in Mindanao who carry guns but are not part of the police or military.

“Because they would really kill us. Not just kill us, they would cut the head of the President in the plaza. They would have Rizal hold it,” he added. JPV