Philippine military asks MILF for help against Jemaah Islamiya

That's like asking a thief to guard your house against any intruders.

From the Tribune:

Incredible! We actually have a military which has to ask an Islamic separatist group that moreover has links to the terror group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) to run after suspected terrorists, when this is the job of the military and the police.

And Gloria claims to be serious about the global war against terrorism, when she and her military have shown they have to rely on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to catch one of their own?

The JI has become a force in Mindanao, with even then Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita acknowledging that the Armed Forces have lost track of the JI recruiters and don't even know just how many JI members there are in the country.

It has been established for sometime the presence of the JI recruiters and trainors in the country.

It is logical then to conclude that, given the length of time they have been training Filipino rebels on the ways of terrorism, they have multiplied by now, with more Filipino recruits now trained into staging terrorist attacks.

Is it any wonder that the government has lost track of the JI members, when it depends on the MILF to run after those who are, in reality, part of the MILF structure?

The military brings up an accord the Philippine government forged with the MILF that this separatist group will be in charge of policing its ranks and running after the JI members.

Has the Arroyo administration then ceded Philippine territory to the MILF that it now expects this rebel group to run after the JI terrorists?

And does this mean that the Philippine government now acknowledges it cannot contain the Islamic terrorists in the country, since it looks to the MILF to do this job instead of the government?

Given the fact that there is a known, if not already confirmed connection between the JI and the MILF, why should the military expect the MILF to run after those who are in fact, working with the MILF, as these MILF members, who are being passed off by the MILF leadership as belonging to the MILF lost command?

If the MILF were truly out to weed out these JI trainees from Mindanao, the government could have done so long ago, since the JI training grounds are found in those camps controlled again today by the MILF.

This whole peacetalk thing is a big charade with the MILF, backed up by the international Islamic community which Gloria courts assiduously these days after having been dropped from the US coalition, and the charade continues.

Just what can Gloria offer the MILF, if not that which was already thumbed down by some congressional members, as Philippine territories, such as the land and the camps that had earlier been ceded to the MILF by Gloria, recognizing these as MILF-controlled territories, with the police and military forces ordered to stay away from these camps and getting the police and military to first tip off the MILF on the presence of terrorists in its camps, and hoping the MILF will run after its own and surrender these terrorists to the military and police?

Worse, Gloria, under the agreement earlier forged with the MILF, will allow this group to borrow funds from international bodies, for the group to spend on the so-called Mindanao development, which loans, no doubt, will be shouldered once again by the Philippine government — all of which conditions, incidentally, are patently unconstitutional.

So what happened to the military that was under the command of then Commander-in-Chief, Joseph Estrada, when, in 2000, without any outside help, overran the MILF camps and placed them under the Philippine government control once again?...

Since that power grab, Gloria has been putting a price on the head of these rebels, and nary a whimper was heard from civil society. There is no peace in Mindanao and the camps are back again under the control of these rebels, with the military reduced to asking the rebels to weed out the MILF-JI rebels.

Is this what the soldiers died for in 2000, while reclaiming that which belonged to the country, only to give them back to the armed MILF rebels?