Erap Estrada Update 4/18/2010

No Basilan type siege under Erap presidency

The recent siege carried out by the Abu Sayyaf Group in Basilan that resulted in the death of at least 15 persons would not have happened under an Estrada-led government.

“It would never have happened under my administration,” Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP) standard bearer Joseph Estrada said, stressing that during his short-lived presidency he did not tolerate the existence of private armies.

“I never tolerated any private armies, I dismantled them immediately, I ordered the military and the police to dismantle all private armies since they are illegal,” he said in an interview with reporters covering the PMP campaign trail.


Estrada declared that he had almost eradicated the Abu Sayyaf and the rogue

elements in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front during his two years in the presidency.

“In the case of the Abu Sayyaf, it was almost eradicated during my time. They (rebels) ran and even the chairman of the MILF, Hashim Salamat, fled to Malaysia,” Estrada said.

Estrada claimed that he is not a “war freak president” whose only solution to the Mindanao problem was the military solution. He said that the use of the military was the last thing that a president should do to solve peace and order problems.

“I’m not a war freak president or a war freak person but when you have exhausted all remedies for peace talks, it’s time you see to it that the law of the land is imposed,” he said, lamenting the huge loss of life and limb in Mindanao as a result of the conflict.

He said his government does not claim to have a franchise on the solutions to the peace and order problem in Mindanao but he had greatly diminished the activities of the ASG and the MILF.

He blamed the Arroyo government for indirectly fuelling the violent groups in Mindanao by being soft-handed with them.

“This shows how weak the Arroyo government is,” he said.

He added that if he wins the presidency he will pursue the peace talks with the Muslim secessionist groups in Mindanao but would put a 90-day time frame to conclude the talks and sign a final agreement that does not provide for any form of dismemberment.

“There’s no such thing as dismemberment of even one province, no way. It’s my duty as president, as commander-in-chief to protect the territorial integrity of our country at all cost,”he said.

In Zambaonga City, during the PMP sortie two weeks ago Estrada had met with the town mayors in Basilan province on how they could address the peace and order problem in the province in case he wins the presidential race.

“They are with me and they want peace. They are tired of all these bombings and kidnappings. They have lost their livelihood and want to begin a new life,” Estrada said of the meeting.

He added that he has accepted an invitation from the mayors for him to campaign in Basilan during the last week of the campaign period.

“Yes, I’ll go there,” he said adding that he is not afraid of the bombings.

Meanwhile Arroyo’s virtual monopoly on intelligence funds may have contributed to the failure of authorities to detect the Abu Sayyaf’ bloody rampage in Basilan on Tuesday, United Opposition (UNO) vice presidential candidate Jejomar Binay said today.

Binay noted that such monopoly of confidential and intelligence funds deprived security agencies of the means to uncover terror plots.

Of the P1.35 billion allocated in this year’s national budget for confidential and intelligence expenses almost half or P651 million had been earmarked for the Office of the President (OP), Binay said.

Binay said the OP’s spy funds are five and half times bigger than the P124 million budgeted for the intelligence operations of the whole armed forces.

“When the presidential office gets almost six times in “intel” funds than what the Army, Navy, Air Force , and the AFP general headquarters combined, then there is something grossly wrong in the allocation of defense resources,” Binay said.

He added that the centralization of intelligence funds in the hands of Arroyo reduces the efficiency of the professional intelligence operatives to “smoke out dangerous persons out to do harm to the country.”

“When the Palace appropriates for itself bulk of intelligence funds which should have been given to the field, then it cripples the capacity of the government to detect and foil terrorist attacks,”Binay said.

He suspects that confidential and intelligence funds have been converted to other uses by the OP, a power that is granted to it by the General Appropriations Act .

“The problem here I think is that intelligence funds have been applied elsewhere to the detriment of men and women who are risking their lives to trip whatever sinister plots terrorist groups are always cooking up,”he said .

He added that OP’s P651 million surveillance kitty s also 20 times bigger than other offices in the Department of Defense will get this year.

Outside of the AFP, the DND has an additional allocation of P33 million for intelligence-gathering activities, most of which are cleared through the Office of the Defense Secretary .

Even the 120,000-strong Philippine National Police (PNP) is no match to the OP when it comes to the financial resources available for intelligence operations, Binay pointed out.

The Department of Interior and Local Government , to which the PNP belongs , has an intelligence budget of P270 million for 2010, or what Binay has computed as equivalent to what the Palace will spend in four months in the same area.

In a related development, birthday wishes are starting to pour in days before the former President, often referred to as the “Ama ng Masa”(father of the poor) celebrates his birthday on Monday, April 19, with officials and volunteers from his party, PMP, taking the lead in wishing their leader well.

Estrada and his PMP partymates will be celebrating his birthday in Montalban, with the residents.