Tag Archives: PHILLIPINES

Russia to share intelligence with Philippines, train Duterte guards

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Russia’s top security official on Thursday offered the Philippines access to an intelligence database to help it fight crime and militancy, and training for the elite forces assigned to protect President Rodrigo Duterte.

Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council and Vladimir Putin’s top security adviser, made the offer during a meeting between Russian and Philippine security officials in Davao, where he was visiting Mr. Duterte at his home city.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said Russia had invited the Philippines to join a database-sharing system to help combat trans-national crime and terrorism, which he said could help track Islamist militants and their financial transactions.

In an interview with Reuters last week, Mr. Lorenzana said there were “very strong” links between Islamic State and militants in the Philippines.

Mr. Patrushev’s trip underlines Russia’s intent to capitalize on a radical recalibration of foreign policy under Mr. Duterte, who harbours resentment of the Philippines’ deep-rooted ties to the United States.

Mr. Duterte has made strong overtures towards China and Russia.

He praised Vladmir Putin’s leadership when he met him at an international summit late last year. He also he talked at length to Mr. Putin about what he called U.S. “hypocrisy”.

Mr. Lorenzana said security officials from both sides also discussed law enforcement cooperation, including anti-piracy and anti-narcotics exercises by coastguard and police.

The two countries were working on a military technical cooperation agreement, he said, and Russia offered to provide enhanced training for troops protecting Mr. Duterte.

Mr. Duterte will visit Moscow in May.

“We are keen on signing a defence cooperation agreement,” Mr. Lorenzana said of that trip.

Mr. Lorenzana said last week Russia was interested in selling military equipment to the Philippines, like drones, helicopters, rifles and submarines.

 

Source: Reuters

Armed men free more than 150 prisoners in Philippines jailbreak.

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More than 100 suspected Muslim rebels have stormed a jail in the southern Philippines, killing a guard and allowing 158 inmates to escape, officials said.

Six of the inmates were killed in firefights with pursuing police and army troops, while eight others have been caught and were being returned to the facility, said Senior Inspector Xavier Solda, spokesman for the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.

Initial reports suggested that the gunmen responsible for Wednesday’s jailbreak were linked to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), officials said.

The attackers opened fire at guards at the North Cotabato District Jail in Kidapawan city around 1am, prison warden Peter Bongat told a local radio station.

The jail held 1, 511 inmates at the time, he said.

“When the attack came, according to the report of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, it was a two-hour firefight” said Dionardo Carlos, Philippine National Police Spokesperson.

“The jail guards were trying to stop the attackers and then our police responded,” he said at a press conference.

“Unfortunately, because of the commotion, some inmates escaped using a wooden ladder that they stuck to the wall at the back portion of the jail.”

No claim of responsibility

Unconfirmed reports by Filipino officials suggested that the raid was carried out by Satar Mandalondong, a MILF commander. But the MILF group has not claimed responsibility for the jailbreak.

The MILF is the largest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines and it is based in the southern region of Mindanao. The group demands more autonomy for the Moro people.

The predominantly Catholic Southeast Asian nation has for four decades been fighting rebels in its southern islands.

Wednesday’s incident was the latest of several mass escapes from poorly secured Philippine jails, with the incidents often involving southern rebels.

In August, another rebel group called Maute staged a jailbreak in the southern Philippines, freeing 23 detainees.

About 50 heavily armed members of the group raided the local jail in the southern city of Marawi on Mindanao island and freed eight of their members who were arrested a week earlier, police said.

In 2009 more than 100 armed men raided a jail in the strife-torn southern island of Basilan, freeing 31 prisoners including several guerrillas.

The conflict between the rebels and the state in southern Philippines has left more than 120,000 people dead in the last four decades.

President Rodrigo Duterte is pursuing peace talks with the largest armed Muslim groups, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the MILF.

Smaller bands like the Maute group and the Abu Sayyaf group are not covered by the ceasefires and are not part of the peace process.

Philippines says 11 ISIL sympathisers killed in siege.

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Government troops have killed at least 11 members of a rebel group in the southern Philippines that has pledged allegiance to ISIL, the military said, sending local communities fleeing as a battle raged on Sunday.

The Maute Group, one of a handful of small armed groups behind years of unrest in the south, had since Saturday occupied parts of a municipality in Lanao del Sur and were holed up in an abandoned town hall.

At least four soldiers were wounded in the clashes and there were unconfirmed reports that the group had raised an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant flag in the hall, said Marine Colonel Edgard Arevalo, a military spokesman.

Al Jazeera’s Jameela Alindogan, reporting from Manila, said the fight was ongoing with the town of Butig beseiged and about 200 members of the Maute Group there.

“The leaders of this group are believed to have some foreign fighters who are also a part of this siege,” Alindogan said.

“They also took control of a high school and a mosque in the same town, now half of those residents have already fled and half of them remain to be stuck in that village, this is an operation that is expected to last for days.”

The military has not given an estimate for the number of displaced but local media reported an exodus of as many as 16,000 people from the area. Though the Philippines is predominantly Catholic, many people in the south are Muslim.

The Maute group is one of several armed organisations in the Mindanao islands that have pledged allegiance to ISIL.

“Maute came from a name of clan that is very influential and powerful in Boutig,” Al Jazeera’s Alindogan said. “President Rodrigo Duterte has said in the past that they would like to talk to the Maute Group, but the military has already named them as a terror group.

The group, once described by the military as a small-time extortion gang, attacked a remote army outpost in Butig in February, triggering a week of fighting that the army said left six soldiers and 12 fighters dead.

The group also beheaded two employees of a local sawmill in April, according to the military.

Three members of the Maute group were arrested last month, accused of a September bombing that left 15 people dead in Davao, Duterte’s home town and Mindanao’s largest city.

Government forces captured a Maute training camp in the town in June after a 10-day gunbattle that killed four soldiers and dozens of fighters, according to an army account.

Philippines to jail nine-year-old children for crimes.

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Children as young as nine could be jailed in the Philippines for certain crimes under a proposed law backed by the president, sparking concern Monday from the United Nations and rights groups.

President Rodrigo Duterte’s allies have been pushing to pass laws by December that would restore the death penalty and lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 to 9.

Duterte won May elections largely because of a vow to kill tens of thousands of drug dealers, also promising on the campaign trail to close a loophole in the juvenile justice system that he said allowed traffickers to use minors as narcotic couriers.

“Adult criminals knowingly and purposely make use of youth below 15 years of age to commit crimes, such as drug trafficking,” Pantaleon Alvarez, one of the proposed law’s main backers, said in an explanatory note.

While Duterte wanted the age threshold dropped to 12, his allies went one step further by calling for it to be lowered to nine.

The UN children’s agency UNICEF reminded the Philippines of its international obligations.

Manila is a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says criminal responsibility below the age of 12 is not acceptable.

“Jail is no place for a child. It is alarming for children to be institutionalised (sent to a penal institution),” UNICEF said in a position paper sent to AFP Monday. “It will be retrogression on the part of the Philippine Government.”

Rights organisations launched a campaign called #ChildrenNotCriminals to urge lawmakers to reconsider their support for the law.

One of the groups, Plan International, told AFP that children on the wrong side of the law were often victims of criminal gangs.

“It is unfair that it’s always the children who are blamed. This will result in children becoming hardened criminals,” said Ernesto Almocera of Plan International Philippines.

The advocates appealed to Duterte to explore factors that led children to commit crimes, such as poverty and lack of parental guidance and education.

“We cannot hold children to the same standard as we hold adult offenders,” Melanie Llana of the Philippine Action for Youth Offenders told AFP. “Are we really going to jail 9-year-olds who we know are not fully mature?”

Duterte’s hardline approach to criminals has drawn criticism from its ally the United States, the UN and human rights groups.

Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in police operations and 2,800 have died in unexplained circumstances since Duterte took office on June 30, according to official figures.

Critics allege some of these deaths amount to state-sponsored extrajudicial killings, a charge Duterte has rejected.

Sixth Zika Case Confirmed In Philippines

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The Philippine health department confirmed on Monday that a 45-year-old woman from central Philippine city of Iloilo has tested positive for Zika virus, the sixth case recorded in the country.

Health Undersecretary Gerardo Bayugo told a news conference that the Zika-infected woman, whom he did not identify, has no history of travel abroad, adding that she probably acquired the virus locally.

He also said the disease does not pose a public health risk at this point, adding that the department has not confirmed any local transmission.

He said this could be a case of sporadic transmission. The woman’s husband has yet to be tested for the virus, he added.

“As of now we have no confirmation of any local transmission,” Bayugo said. Nevertheless, he said the government is closely monitoring the situation.

The health department has monitored at least five Zika-infection cases since 2012.

“These (five cases) did not convert into an outbreak. And we hope that this (new) one is sporadic that will not translate (into an outbreak) similar to what is being experienced elsewhere,” Bayugo said.

The Philippine government over the weekend issued an advisory, urging Filipino travellers “to take extra precautions” while staying in Zika-infected countries.

The Philippine Bureau of Quarantine is also continues to screen arriving passengers for signs of fever, one of the symptoms of Zika-infected person.

It has urged all arriving passengers to fit-out a health declaration checklist upon arrival and to report or visit any government health facility if they become ill with unexplained fever within seven days from arrival.

Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Rosell-Ubial has also advised pregnant women to avoid travel to countries with reported Zika case and transmission, adding that it is very risky for pregnant women to get infected with the Zika virus as this has been linked to birth of babies with severe brain and other neurological defects including microcephaly.

Zika virus is acquired through bites from infected Aedes aegypti mosquitos, the same type of mosquito that spreads dengue and chikungunya. Common symptoms include fever, skin rash, joint pains and conjunctivitis, the advisory said.

There is no available vaccine to prevent the mosquito-borne virus. But medial experts said the symptoms of Zika virus could be treated with common pain and fever medicine, rest and enough water intake.