The Philippine government has a major problem keeping dangerous terrorists behind bars. Courts are not letting them free on legal technicalities as in neighboring Indonesia. In the Philippines, battle-hardened guerrillas affiliated with al Qaeda simply walk out of heavily guarded prisons. Again on Saturday, more than 50 inmates escaped from a prison on Basilan, the island headquarters for the militant Islamist Abu Sayyaf. Many of the escapees are members of the Abu Sayyaf and were responsible for the deaths of two Americans, one of whom was beheaded. The terrorist crisis in the Philippines will not be solved until there is more direct U.S. involvement in the fighting.
The inability of the Philippine security apparatus to hold terrorists is embarrassing for a nation that the Bush administration has named a Major Non-NATO Ally, status which gives Manila priority for military assistance. But worse than that, an unreliable ally against terror is risky.
Last year, Jemaah Islamiya bomb expert Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi walked out of a high-security prison run by the Philippine National Police shortly before President Bush’s visit to the archipelago. Not long before that, kidnap gang leader Faisal Marohombsar escaped from a well-guarded facility. In June 2001, the entire leadership of the Abu Sayyaf was cornered in a hospital but fled through the back door after soldiers there were ordered away by their commanding officers. Bribes to the military or police were suspected in every instance, but serious punishments were not levied for any.
A few thousand U.S. troops have been deployed to the Philippine islands to help in the terror fight over the last couple of years. Unfortunately, the recent jailbreak fiasco is typical of the consequences from President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s persistent refusal to allow American GIs to take an offensive role in combat. The U.S. military is very popular, with polls consistently showing that more than 80 percent of Filipinos support its presence in the country. Nearly as many support giving U.S. forces an active role in wiping out the Muslim extremists.
Mrs. Arroyo maintains that the Philippine Constitution forbids U.S. offensive action, although she herself came into the presidency through a controversial military-backed supra-constitutional maneuver that circumvented the legal impeachment process. More to the point, times change. In the age of terrorism, nations must change their laws to meet new realities. For instance, Japan is moving to modify its pacifist constitution, and both Britain and the United States are broadly reorganizing government and law to meet the threats of an increasingly dangerous world.
Giving U.S. forces an offensive role in the Philippines has benefits from every angle — including further professionalizing Philippine forces. Huge majorities of Filipinos would support a constitutional change. It is a natural and necessary institutional adjustment for Manila to make to meet the challenges posed by the war on terror in the Philippines.
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