Secretary of National Defense Delfin Lorenzana said that the role of the US troops on the Marawi siege is very vital for the precise movements of the soldiers on the ground.
Lorenzana said that the US troops only provide surveillance of the enemies on the ground and that no American soldiers were fighting along side with the Armed Forces of the Philippines against the ISIS backed Maute group.
He said that the US troops are in the country since 2000 helping the Filipino’s war against the Abu Sayyaf and decided to help the Marawi siege even though the Philippine Government did not ask for it.
Lorenzana said that they did not need to ask help for the American troops since they can just help anytime they want.
“What General (Carlito) Galves did was, he brought three people with equipment that can help with the surveillance of the movements of the enemy not only in Marawi but the entire Lanao Del Sur,” Lorenzana said.
He said that the role of the American troops is very vital for the movements of the soldiers since they can give precise locations of the enemy to prevent mistakes during the conduct of airstrikes.
Lorenza though said that the help of the American troops will not last long since they are targeting to finish the Marawi siege anytime this week.
Meanwhile the Central Bank of the Philippines and Department of Finance are already tracing the recovered money of the Maute group amounting to P72.9 million.
“The Central Bank and Department of Finance are already tracing the codes of the money, where it came from, when was it released or when was it created. Through this, we can identify the bank that released the big amount of money whether in bulk or not,” Lorenzana said.
Lorenzana also said that the engineering brigade of the Military are now on standby to help the residents of Marawi in constructing their houses and the government facilities.
“I already told the President that we need to help the civilians repair their homes before they can go back there especially those destroyed by our operations,” he said.
Lorenzana said that they are now planning on how they will Marawi get back to normality through repairing the destroyed infrastructures and bringing back water and electricity.
He said that they already have a draft Executive Order on their plan to rehabilitate Marawi City.
“My recommendation was that the government will initially allocate P10 billion for the rehabilitation of Marawi City,” he said.
