President Duterte on Friday warned against the rise of terrorism in the days ahead, saying it would become a serious problem the nation will have to face and to overcome.
“I would like to warn you in the coming days we will be facing a serious problem. Aside from drugs, be prepared for something else, its terrorism,” the President said during his attendance at the graduation ceremony of the Highway Patrol Group (HPG) motorcycle riding course at the Felis Resort Complex in Matina Aplaya, Davao City.
“It will come,” he pointed out, adding that the government is seeing the dangers of terrorism in the next two to three years.
The President however clarified that defeating terrorism will not be attained through fighting, saying he is not seeing any positive outcomes on such option.
“The best to counter (terrorism) is human intelligence,” he said, emphasizing that peaceful resolution will always be the policy of the present administration.
“Ayaw ko sana ng gulo, mapatay mo man yan wala rin. This has been going on for so many years. This will never stop. Mas mabuti pa mag-usap na lang,” he stressed.
He also announced his plans to conduct series of talks to Moro leaders in the coming days.
“I already told the Moro leaders during the summit of ARMM: It is really the Moro nationalism, the spirit to crave for – they are the first who settled here in Mindanao. But they were marginalized,” he said.
Threats of terror attacks led to the declaration of alert level 3 in the entire nation by the Philippine National Police (PNP) last Thursday.
Malacanang said the alert level 3 declaration was consistent with the state of national emergency or the declaration of state of lawlessness declared by President Duterte in September this year.
The President also clarified that he is not declaring Martial Law, contrary to what other sectors are speculating.
He said speculators thought he would declare military rule every time he would express anger over issues that greatly affect the lives of the Filipino people.
President Duterte pointed out that he is not building a country over the bones of the Muslims and Christians.
