NOW that efforts are being undertaken to rehabilitate Marawi City, a lawmaker has asked the government to strengthen the law enforcement agencies.
Since the peace and order situation in the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) can affect the whole Mindanao, Lanao del Norte 1st District Rep. Mohamad Khalid Dimaporo said the region’s police force must be properly equipped so they can be effective in combatting the armed extremists that are proliferating in the southern part of the country.
Dimaporo said it is his hope that the Duterte administration will augment the Armm’s security forces with the latest combat equipment needed for them to be effective in policing their jurisdiction, especially in areas where there is a significant presence of insurgency and terrorism.
Without the proper operational gear, the congressman said, the task of maintaining peace and order will fall solely on the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
He said the police will be a great help in quelling any terroristic or criminal activities in the region and its peripheries.
The reputation of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in the ARMM, Dimaporo said, should be corrected in order “to root out the ideology of terrorism from Muslim communities. The nation is not new to beheadings, to bombings of key cities. What is new is the participation of a foreign terror organization to infiltrate and take over a city.”
Dimaporo was referring to what happened in Marawi where local extremists pledged allegiance to the Middle East-based Islamic State as they fought the state forces for almost half a year that resulted to the destruction of properties, the loss of hundreds of lives and the displacement of thousands of residents.
Also, before the House of Representatives took a Christmas break, Dimaporo said he also filed a resolution urging the AFP to give Congress a detailed account of what happened in Marawi before and during the siege purposely to learn from these events.
“There is a need to put on public record the conduct of operations by our military,” he said, adding that the armed forces’ budget has been underfunded.
