Counterterrorism

THE Philippines is among the top 10 countries with the highest level of terrorist activity in 2013, according to the study released recently by the Institute for Economics (IEP).
“Terrorism has increased significantly in the Philippines between 2012 and 2013, with almost twice as many incidents. The number of deaths has also more than doubled in this period increasing from 122 to 292,” the report stated.
This statistics brought Philippines to the 9th spot on the list.
IEP was able to track a total of 499 incidents in the country. This caused 292 lives and 444 injuries, as included in its Global Terrorism Index.
Extreme insurgence in the country, according to the study, is “intrinsically tied with national and separatist claims by people living in southern Philippines,” a deviation from the world trend of religion, outranking national separatist agendas as the impelling ideology for terrorism.
“However, terrorism is spread across the country. There were 438 cities that suffered a terrorist attack in 2013 of which only 104 had one attack,” the report said.
Throughout year 2013, 83 percent of all 81 provinces in the Philippines experienced at least one terrorist attack. Cotabato City in Mindanao was the city that saw the highest number of terrorist attacks with 11 separate attacks that killed 11 people.
IEP identified New People’s Army (NPA), Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) as the groups that had the most terrorist activities.
In total, the country contributes 1.6 percent of the total 17,958 deaths worldwide, an increase from 11,133 recorded deaths in 2012.
Joining Philippines in the top 10 in the Global Terrorism Index are Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Syria, Somalia, India, Yemen and Thailand.
Even before IEP’s study was released, the national government and the MILF have been exerting tremendous effort in addressing the decades-long insurgence in the country.
The culmination of such collaboration, so far, is the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro. It is now on its way to becoming a law.
The agreement would give way to the creation of an autonomous political entity named Bangsamoro, superseding the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). One of the provisions in the proposed law is disarming private armies in the area.
The numbers speak for themselves. Terrorism in the Philippines, despite efforts of the authorities, is still rampant.
As Helen Keller, an American author and political activist once said, “We may have found a cure for most evils; but we have found no remedy for the worst of them all, the apathy of human beings.”
Terrorism threatens the world’s citizens.This means it is as much as our responsibility, as it is for the national governments to maintain peace and security.
(AJPress)