EDITORIAL — ‘Mautes regrouping’

All seven Maute brothers have been killed. Their father Cayamora, said to be a senior member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front when it was still waging a separatist rebellion, was arrested on June 8, 2017 and died two months later reportedly while having breathing problems. Their mother Farhana or Ominta Romato was arrested a day after Cayamora on charges of financing terrorist operations. She remains in detention.

So the Armed Forces of the Philippines is seen to have neutralized the family whose surname has been associated with the worst urban terrorist assault in the country. Brothers Abdullah and Omar Maute set up a terrorist cell that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and then teamed up with the Abu Sayyaf’s Isnilon Hapilon to attack Marawi City on May 23, 2017.

The attack caught the government by surprise. All the key security officials at the time were in Moscow with then president Rodrigo Duterte, who was forced to scrap a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and rush back to the Philippines.

It took government forces five months to dislodge the Maute-Abu Sayyaf forces from Marawi and declare an end to the siege. Abdullah Maute, commander of the group, was confirmed killed in an air strike on Aug. 7. Omar Maute and Hapilon were killed on Oct. 17. A day later, Duterte announced that Marawi had been “liberated from terrorist influence.”

Marawi, however, lay in ruins, and to this day has yet to fully recover from the siege that at some stages involved close-quarters combat. Many residents displaced by the siege have been unable to rebuild their lives in the city. In the meantime, persons supporting the Mautes are regrouping and “growing in numbers” in Marawi. This was reported to the Senate yesterday by an official of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos.

NCMF chief of staff Manggay Guro Jr. reported this during a public hearing of the Senate committee on foreign affairs on the possibility of the Philippines accepting refugees from Afghanistan, upon the request of the United States.

Regardless of the Marcos administration’s policy on Afghan refugees, the report of Guro deserves to be verified for appropriate action. The Abu Sayyaf has lost its commanders through the years but has managed to keep regrouping and installing new leaders. With Marawi’s rehabilitation still not complete, every effort must be made to prevent a repeat of the siege.