Phillipines trying to reclaim city that is under siege

Link

Newly arrived from Moscow, just hours after cutting short his diplomatic visit to Russia, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte stepped behind a lectern to explain his decision to declare martial law in the southern island of Mindanao.

With his right hand raised, Duterte made a stark pledge.

"If I think you should die, you will die. If you fight us, you will die. If there's an open defiance, you will die. And if it means many people dying, so be it," Duterte said at the news conference Wednesday. "That's how it is."

Archbishop Socrates Villegas, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines, also said jihadi fighters had taken a priest and at least a dozen other people hostage.

"They have threatened to kill the hostages if the government forces unleashed against them are not recalled," Villegas said in a statement. "[The priest] was not a combatant. He was not bearing arms. He was a threat to none."

Sigh.. better not be Malaysia next..where I am originally from.

The Philippines is lucky to have a strong and reliable president. Obama would have already surrendered to ISIS.

Based Duterte.

I fear that when all hell broke loose refugee from south philipine will come to my state Sabah a.k.a North Borneo .... for the second time ..... and south philipine refugees are not what you think ...... If you Europeans complaining about the nasty syrian refugee ..... It already happen to me since the early 80's .... my Local North Borneo citizen was raped, robbed, murder because of this Moro refugee.

Many of them never return to their hometown and breed like rabbits because they felt the economy here are better than their country. The local and peaceful moslem population in my state North Borneo is from less than 20% at that time ... now jump to more than 60% (similar to what happened to christian majority Lebonan in the 60's when they welcome palestine refugee). Locals in north borneo household usually have small family, just like any modern society.

Now, Those refugee start to act like a boss and use fake ID to claim benefits which only reserved for our national citizen. and since these south philipine moro refugee are moslem, they get extra benefit like changing their race to "malay".Definition of Malay in malaysia

worst thing about these refugee generations whose parents using fake ID.... they start entering the national security forces and bring in more of their kind as illegal immigrant or other illegals from pakistan, indonesia (mainly from sulawesi/celebes).

Today they are outnumber us more than half. and some has entered in our politics.

if you say EU are doom .... we are dead-inside long time ago.

Just recently been catching news on the Phillipines situation.

While he is a controversial President. Martial law is the way to go. As bad as the Philippines has it economically. The current government keeps those islands somewhat stable. And that is a much better scenario than what's going on in Syria. So hopefully the international community doesn't use this group, as a way to dethrone the current Philippine government despite disagreements.

@FireEmblem_Man: From the news sources, it seems foreign Islamic fighters has invaded the southern region of Mindanao.

Yea only because Malaysia govt allows it exactly as you said because they are muslim...this is what liberal nut jobs who have never lived in a muslim majority country or in an Islamic country as a minority...don't get..yet love to spout their fairy tale liberalism ideals..

They won't US won't get involve cause there's not much for them I don't think..I could be wrong. Human rights group has already whinge about him being too tough/brutal.

Without getting killed, it would be difficult to promote secularism in Islamic countries, let alone promote Christianity.

Implementing Martial Law in the mindanao part of the Philippines would be a good idea to keep the civilians safe and possibly, to eradicate the terrorist group, Maute. Even martial law is not yet in the entire Philippines, some Filipinos rallied and didn't want martial law to happen even it's for the solution to end war. They use their voice to say end the war but others said they sound stupid doing that.

I, myself, is from Philippines so I know almost everything in this issue. All you have to do is #PrayForMarawi (the place where the attack happened)

@Storm_Marine: I thought American Government don't negotiate with the terrorists? No offense.

@Storm_Marine: That's true but I think he's not a good economist. foreign exchange between US$- PH peso gets high/ vice versa.

*Sigh* Shootings in Egypt 24 dead, 25 wounded.. Link

Damn. I wish I saw more about this in the news here. don't think it has been mentioned =/

@horgen: It's a mess outside of USA and Japan.

http://in.reuters.com/article/philippines-defence-idINKBN15O1AJ

Funding for global ISIS push was sourced from Saudi Arabia and other gulf states.

"Before, what we suspected was the ISIS group would come here but now we are certain that the connections are very strong between home-grown terrorists here and ISIS in the Middle East," he said in an interview, referring to Islamic State.

"Also there's quite an amount of money being sent here from the Middle East."

He said communications via social media, telephone and text messages had been intercepted and funds were being transferred that were difficult to detect due to the large numbers of Filipinos who regularly remit income from places like Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states.

It's the Philippines, a poor and insignificant country with nothing to offer so most Westerners and Western media wouldn't care. Middle Eastern countries have oil and their location in the world is very important when it comes to trade. The location of the Philippines is not so important for trade unlike Singapore and USA still has South Korea and Japan for American bases.

South China Sea and Benham Rise has potential for oil and gas, hence entanglement with China.

Philippines is important for trade routes and Benham Rise is the alternative trade route for South China Sea.

It's still ISIS. Some people here in the West might need to be reminded that it isn't only we who struggle with them.

It's in the news here in the states.

We need to be helping these Filipinos, wtf are we doing?

Don't you know the current Philippine president? He's anti-American and he actually wants all US military personnel out of the country. It would be better to just leave and let them fend for themselves because that's what he seems to want and most of the citizens blindly follow whatever he wants.

I very much agree however it's the Philippines, a long useless ally of the US that has turned anti-American. The current government of the Philippines actually wants all American military personnel to leave the islands. It is difficult to sympathize with a country that's been like a beggar to the US and now cries Western imperialism and Western meddling. The Filipinos sadly are not good at governing themselves. This Islamic/Muslim rebellion in the country has been going on for decades now dating back to 1960s. It's now new like the ISIS. What has changed is that the local rebels are now turning to ISIS to strengthen their rebellion.

Theyre a key trade partner in export and import and with high potential if conditions are improved.

Good to know that Phillipines has a REAL man leading them. Getting tired of all these beta-male liberal cuckolds who think slapping somebody on the wrist is considered "brutality".

Yeah man. I'm half-FIlipino and now I feel at least half-badass. Killing is awesome.

Actually, Duterte is fine with the Trump administration. Obama + left wing progressives interfered in PH's internal affairs, hence the rebuff from PH.

Spouting criticism is automatically considered interference of internal affairs? You sound like a butthurt liberal. The current Philippine president speaks like an immature kid incapable of accepting criticisms and turns to curse words and rape jokes for rebuttal. Like any other politician, a lot of his promises weren't fulfilled and he's just all words. I don't see the country getting any better without drug users as a lot of their citizens are illiterate and uneducated and no foreign investor would want to invest in that country (foreign investment has dropped because of the retarded president). A lot of Filipinos want that one guy to fix the problems of their country and when they think they found one they become like a hive mind where they revere that figure shielding him from all criticisms. This was true for the previous Philippine president. Only the name changes. The Philippines has never had emperors/kings and it seems monarchy is what they really want. Sign of a society still incapable of governing themselves.

@lordlors: I care about your country! As a Mexican, I always felt a spiritual connection with your people because we are almost a like! My brother's girlfriend has family out their and it's a scary time for them. I also have Filipino friends that are very concern

Liberal... me? LOL. Duterte dislikes hypocrites.

In many western countries like Australia and USA, armed criminals attracts Law enforcement's "shoot to kill" rules of engagement.

As for your foreign investor argument... http://www.philstar.com/business/2017/05/11/1698668/fdi-inflows-11-2-months

Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows recorded a double-digit growth of 11 percent in the first two months on the back of sustained growth in the economy