File photo of retired AFP chief Emmanuel Bautista
Unless the internal conflict in Mindanao ends, the country could see a spillover of violence from followers of the Islamic State, a ranking security official warned on Thursday.
"When the ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, as IS used to call itself) is defeated in Syria and Iraq, where will those members from Malaysia and Indonesia go? Where else they will seek sanctuary but in a place with continuing conflict?" Emmanuel Bautista, executive secretary of the Cabinet cluster on security, justice and peace told the forum, “Implications of Mamasapano on the Peace Process: Moving Forward,” in Makati City.
"We need to address this conflict (in Mindanao) because of the potential threat from the outside," Bautista, a former chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, stressed even as he clarified that there is “no substantive evidence” of direct IS recruitment in the country although there are reports the extremist group, which has waged a brutal campaign and seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria, has a half-Filipino member.
The January 25 incident in Mamaspano, Maguindanao, which saw 44 police Special Action Force commandos, 18 Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters and at least five civilians killed in the clash that broke out during the operation to get Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias “Marwan,” has led to calls from some quarters for the scrapping of the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law, which would create a new autonomous homeland in Mindanao and cap the peace agreement between government and the MILF.
However, Bautista said the BBL’s passage would help resolve the internal conflict.
"We have been in conflict for the last 40 years, we can't go on fighting in the next 40 years," he said.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/106301/is-terror-could-spillover-to-ph-unless-mindanao-conflict-solved-security-exec-warns
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