Angara: More work to be done in Marawi even after end of military ops

A soldier inspects the Marawi City Hall on Monday, July 3, 2017, as more troops are ordered to the battle zone to flush out terrorists still occupying four villages in the city. (Photo by JEOFFREY MAITEM / Inquirer Mindanao)

Military operations against terrorists in Marawi may end soon, but the government will need to address more issues, according to Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara.

“We’ve pushed them (Maute group) back,” Angara said in an interview with CNN Philippines. “But obviously, that’s not the end of it because we have to, number one, rebuild Marawi, and second, prevent something like this from happening again.”

Asked about rebuilding Marawi, Angara reiterated President Rodrigo Duterte’s promise to give P20 billion.

“There’s a need to rebuild – you’re talking about anywhere from 250,000 to 350,000 people who were displaced. How do you get them back to normal? How do you get places like hospitals, schools, rebuilt in the fastest amount of time?” he said.

Earlier, he had proposed the creation of a “Marawi Bangon Fund” for rehabilitation of the war-torn city. The seed money for the trust fund, he said, could be sourced from the P21-billion calamity fund included in the 2017 national budget.

“Hopefully, that’s not used up by the end of the year, and anything that’s left there, yun ang mapunta sa Marawi,” he said.

Angara also recognized the need for greater military engagement and civilian activities to prevent the a similar situation from happening again.

“It’s the first type of urban warfare that we’ve fought that we see in Iraq and other countries,” he said. “So, I talked to some of the soldiers, and they said, maybe we need to retool a little bit.”

Asked if the government would need the help of other countries to modernize and get the military better equipped, Angara said yes – probably in terms of technology and intelligence.

“We’re not really known as a military supplier,” he said. “So I think, for technology, definitely, we need that. And secondly, for intelligence. I think that’s the trend now. It’s the greater sharing of intelligence.”

As for the need of certain types of vehicles or firearms, as the troops told him, the senator said he would leave issue for the experts to decide on.

Asked to comment on the possibility that a failure in intelligence was what allowed the Marawi siege, Angara said: “Some agencies have people who tend to be very protective of their intelligence. I don’t want to comment on something like that, because you know, it might – I don’t want to say anything demoralizing to our armed forces right now because they are in the middle of a battle. But there’ll be a time to analyze that – to do a post-mortem on that.” –Rogelio Nato Jr. /atm