Duterte admits “failure of intelligence” about threat in Marawi

July 24, 2017

President Rodrigo Duterte admitted there is a failure of intelligence in Marawi City as the terrorist group still has a lot of ammunitions and explosives as the battle stretched for more than two months. “We did not know and there was this failure of intelligence, we did not know the depth. There were tunnels there and they were stocking explosives. Until now it seems to be without, it’s not exhausted. Until now I’m wondering where they are getting (these). So in other words their build-up was there for many months,”  he said. “I’m not saying that I’m blaming the Maranao, I’m blaming the Maranaos who are in cahoots with the terrorists because obviously the stockpile was there for a long time. They are not running out of ammunition and explosives,” he added. “Now it turns out that they have plenty still, so we are wrong with that. It means, if that is what you want, there was a mistake in the evaluation of assessment,” Duterte noted. Duterte said they would see the extent of the tunnels after the military finally retake Marawi from the Maute-Abu Sayyaf Group. “If we are living in Marawi, we were able to know that. The tunnels are just like the Viet Congs built in Saigon… but there were tunnels were in the fields. Those were discovered after the Americans left Vietnam,” he said. “The same with us. We will only know how extensive it is. How big is that when we finally prevail over Marawi,” Duterte added. Duterte  reiterated he does not recommend assault in areas where the terrorist hold around 300 hostages. “I don’t recommend assaulting the place where the civilians are being hostage because it will be a more obvious thing to hear for the Filipinos,” Duterte said. Based on the latest data of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) a total of 109 government forces and 452 local terrorist members are killed since the battle in Marawi City started May 23. (Robina Asido/DMS)