Marawi City, Philippines—Concerned people in Marawi City have said that Military operation against the Moro Islamic Liberation Fronts is costly on the part of the government and is adversely affecting the country’s economy.

Members of the Tarompong sa Ranao Radio Forum (TRRF), Inc.  revealed their adverse comments using two way radios after Brigadier General Jorge Segovia, acting Chief of the Armed Forces command center, saying last Saturday that “the renewed war against the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Mindanao was using up military resources… Conducting operations are costly, he said at the Sulo Hotel..

Segovia also said that the Armed Forces would request more money from the House committee on defense for the purchase of transport planes, helicopters, vehicles, and communication equipment, among others.

Dr. Guimba Poingan, former Vice President for Administration and Finance of the Mindanao state University,  said: “the statement is a manifestation of how expensive is the operation because seeking more money means that current budget of the Department of National Defense and Armed Forces of the Philippines have been exhausted.”

Segovia could not give figures on military expenses for operations against the MILF commanders who attacked communities in North Cotabato, Lanao Del Norte, and Sarangani after the aborted signing of the Memorandum on Agreement on Ancestral Doman early last month.

We are submitting to the legislature a wish list that will give us the capability to confront the situation," he told reporters after the forum.  At the height of the government war against Islamic secessionists in the 1970s, unofficial reports said the government was spending up to P1 million a day.

 The Moro rebels were reported to have been financed by sympathizers in the Middle East and other Islamic countries. This might be true since Muslims all over the world are brothers and must be united and they have to help one another.

Dr. Habib Macaayong, senior faculty member of MSU, revealed that Puno and other Military officials are the ones interested in war because they can get commissions from emergency funds for the war against MILF. GRP is just wasting money in attacking the MILF because they cannot get Commanders Bravo and Kato. What they are killing and destroying are the civilians and their livelihood, Macaayong told to the LAMP reporter.

Prof. Hassan Cana, former Dean of the King Faisal Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies of MSU, said: “this military operation contradicts domestic and international clamor for peace.. Our economy will go down the drain and our people’s sufferings to the  benefits of the AFP to have its huge budget.”
 Prof. Dato Hassan Cana  questions the used of sophisticated weapons of global war-standard against fellow Filipinos in Muslim Mindanao. We want peace and not war! Peace is so cheap and it continuously paves the way to more progress and development.  While war is so expensive … It destroys and generates more destructions and wasting more lives, properties and crops and will make many of us poorest and weakest as seen in all war-ravaged countries.

Cana also stressed that “the Muslims in the Philippines, who, at least majority, prefer to be identified as Bangsamoro, have a unique history and development that deserves attention and understanding.  While others have succumbed to, the whims and caprices of the western world, our country that once rules by shieiks, sultans, rajahs and datus (our common ancestors) became the only catholic country in Asia serving as the purveyor of Vatican-inspired crusade for Christianization.  Except Mindanao where the Bangsamoro had successfully resisted foreign invasions and keep the torch of Islam ever shining as in Malaysia and other Malay Asean countries.”

Bangsamoro struggle undergoes not only years and decades but even centuries is to defend and preserve their distinct identity in their own homeland which they had fought heroically and still fighting for due to the continued influx of peoples which was characterized by massive land grabbing and territorial machinations with divide and rule strategies.  They just want to keep a portion of their once vast lands they can forever call a homeland for the Bangsamoro within the Filipino nationhood, Cana told to the LAMP reporter.

Dr. Camar Umpa, former President of MSU, said that since colonial times military operations proved to be a futile solution to the so called Mindanao problem. The recent hostilities  were due to the backtracking by the Philippine government in the peace negotiation by making offers which it cannot deliver.  The Government therefore should take the blame instead of launching a military offensive

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