THE Armed Forces will continue to consider the safety of hostages while carrying out its mission to crush the Abu Sayyaf, the spokesman for the military said.
Asked to comment on President Duterte’s order to bomb the bandits even if they have hostages with them, Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla said: “We got this guidance and looked at it seriously…but in the implementation of [the] guidance, we apply our skills and our operational art.”
Addressing businessmen in Davao City over the weekend, Duterte said he had instructed the Navy and the Coast Guard: “If there are kidnappers and they’re trying to escape, bomb them all.”
“They say ‘hostages’. Sorry, collateral damage,” he said in the speech, delivered soon after the kidnapped Korean ship captain and Filipino crew member of a cargo vessel were freed in Sulu.
The Abu Sayyaf is believed to be holding up to 28 kidnap victims, a number of them foreigners.
Padilla said the military “is prepared to carry out the President’s directive, but we will also take consideration of the hostages’ lives while applying the full force of military resources and power in order to implement that.”
He added it was up to ground commanders “to be able to implement that in the best way possible, at the least cost of life and at the least application of violence.”
Nevertheless, he stressed that Duterte’s order spoke of his commitment to remove the Abu Sayyaf threat, once and for all.
Image credits: PNA