Philippine National Police Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa insists that martial law has been very effective in Mindanao, pointing out that it has been potent in neutralizing warlords on the island.
In his first press briefing for 2018 on Tuesday, Dela Rosa backed the continuation of martial law in Mindanao, 23 days after Congress approved its extension for one year.
“There are lots of problems in Mindanao,” Dela Rosa said. “Number one is loose firearms. Loose firearms will be more thoroughly addressed under martial law.”
“Just look, everyone in Mindanao is afraid to carry firearms,” the PNP chief said.
Prior to martial law, he said Mindanao warlords and even local chief executives, governors and mayors, traveled in four-vehicle convoys full of armed security escorts.
Without firearms
“Now they travel on their own without firearms because they are afraid of martial law,” Dela Rosa said.
“Martial law is very effective,” he stressed, six days after armed men kidnapped a police official in President Roxas, North Cotabato, on Dec. 29.
Insp. Menardo Cui, deputy police chief of President Roxas town, was at a roadside store in Barangay Poblacion when four men took him at gunpoint.
Cui was actually the second policeman to be abducted in Mindanao after PO1 Bristol Catalan, who was kidnapped in Makilala, North Cotabato, in August, three months after the declaration of martial law.
Catalan was released by the New People’s Army in early December.
The North Cotabato provincial police spokesperson, Supt. Bernard Tayong, said no other armed group operated in Magpet and President Roxas except the communist rebels.