DND chief confident military to end ASG threat

From the Philippine News Agency (Jan 13): DND chief confident military to end ASG threat

With President Rodrigo Duterte expressing confidence and full support to the military, Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has expressed optimism that the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) will finally be neutralized.

This is in wake of the earlier pronouncements of Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief-of-staff Gen. Eduardo Año that they would try to end the terror threat posed by the bandit group within six months to one year.

"(Six months to one year) is the self-imposed deadline by Gen. Año. I have great confidence on his leadership of the AFP (that) they can do the job," Lorenzana stressed.

Besides the AFP chief's leadership skills, the DND chief said he was also confident that the ASG threat would be eliminated once and for all as the Chief Executive had given the military a free hand to organize their units and all the support it needed.

"Well the difference that we have a President that have confidence on our military and (he has given them) some free hand to reorganize our units, he has given us lot of support to you know, you will send the people to battle, so they should be given enough (resources) to win the war, not to go there just to (with) emotion of doing their job, they should be able to have the equipment and the resources to fight the war and that's what they are doing with our troops in the south," he added.

Upon his assumption of the Presidency last July, Duterte ordered a massive campaign against the ASG, killing scores and rescuing dozens of hostages within the ASG enclaves in Sulu and Basilan.
Military operations against the brigands are still ongoing as of this posting.

Año earlier said that while Development Support Security Plan "Kapayapaan" was focused on the primacy primacy of the peace process, terror groups like the ASG, Maute Group, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, Ansar Al-Khilafah Philippines and other lawless groups would feel the full brunt of the military's combat power.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=954879