MANILA, Philippines — There is no protocol yet that would allow Moro National Liberation Front members to fight alongside government forces, the military said Monday.
MNLF founding chairman Nur Misuari has offered to provide 2,000 combatants to help in the government’ fight against Maute terrorists in Marawi City. President Rodrigo Duterte has accepted the offer, saying he is willing to take in the MNLF fighters as regular members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla, AFP spokesman, however, said such arrangement may not take effect for now.
“Mechanisms for any kind of this arrangement need to be discussed thoroughly prior to its implementation. So, right now, we don’t have the appropriate protocols,” Padilla said in a press briefing in Malacañang.
“We don’t have the appropriate coordinative elements on the ground to make this happen. So this may come later, after the resolution of the Marawi incident but not during this time. We have not sat down to discuss how it will be implemented,” he added.
Asked if the MNLF offer is not doable, Padilla said: “For the moment, that is the way we see it. And if this prolongs a little bit more, then perhaps we can do it. But, hopefully not.”
“We’ll require a process of sorts of consultation and discussions in order to resolve certain issues, to lay down parameters and protocols for inter-operability and the like,” he added.
Government forces have been clashing with Maute terrorists in Marawi City since May 23. The Islamic State-linked terrorists have staged a series of attacks in the city, prompting Duterte to place the entire island of Mindanao under martial law.
Duterte has said he is ready to recruit rebels from the MNLF, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the New People’s Army to the military to intensify the campaign against the terrorists.
He claimed that the government has not had any problem with the integration of MNLF members into the armed forces.
While the AFP has members who are MNLF integrees, the last batch of those entered the service in 2003. The integration was part of the final peace agreement between the government and the MNLF.