DAVAO CITY/MANILA, 15 March 2003 — Citing opposition to a planned counterterrorism exercise with US troops on the southern province of Sulu, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said yesterday she has decided to conduct it elsewhere in the country.

“Pretty final,” Arroyo said of her decision not to hold the Balikatan, or “shoulder to shoulder,” exercise on the island of Jolo in Sulu.

She said there are “so many other provinces” where the exercise is welcome.

“Why would you insist on something that is complicated? So why not choose from places where people would be happy?” Arroyo said.

She said officials from the Defense Department and the military will determine the new venue in meetings with their US counterparts.

Several of the alternatives are also hotbeds of insurgency.

North Cotabato province on Mindanao has seen heavy fighting since February when soldiers captured a key stronghold of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country’s largest Muslim separatist group with about 12,000 guerrillas.

Mindoro Occidental in the central Philippines has been the scene of skirmishes with the communist New People’s Army.

Earlier this week, communist spokesman Gregorio Rosal warned that US troops would be “legitimate targets” if they moved into strongholds of the NPA during training exercises.

The United States and the Philippines had been negotiating the terms of the proposed maneuvers on troubled Jolo, where many residents oppose a US military presence. Bitterness remains on Jolo over the deaths of hundreds of Filipino Muslims who fought American colonial forces in the early 1900s.

A six-month exercise last year on another southern island, Basilan, was credited with breaking up the Muslim extremist Abu Sayyaf group and aiding in the capture and death of some members and leaders.

The Arroyo government became embroiled in a political controversy when unidentified US defense officials said in Washington that American soldiers would be allowed to fight the Abu Sayyaf group on Jolo, where remnants of the Abu Sayyaf from Basilan have fled.

Arroyo earlier ruled out any combat role for US troops. Philippine law prohibits foreign troops from engaging in combat on Philippine territory.

More Fighting

In Central Mindanao, northeast of Jolo, sporadic fighting between government troops and separatist Muslim guerrillas continued yesterday and each side claimed it inflicted heavy casualties.

About 20 MILF men were killed when they tried to block a highway linking the towns of Cotabato and Davao on the main southern island of Mindanao, army Col. Carduzo Luna said. A few hours later, MILF rebels blasted a power pylon in Aleosan, plunging the province of Maguindanao and nearby areas into darkness, Luna added.

Regional army spokesman Maj. Julieto Ando claimed about 100 rebels were killed Thursday in fighting around Buliok camp, which the army took from the rebels last month, bringing the rebel death toll to 300 this week. MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said only six guerrillas were killed and 26 wounded, and claimed about 100 soldiers were killed or wounded.

Neither side was able to back its claim with bodies.

Amid the fighting, Libya’s ambassador to the Philippines, Salem Adam, called for an immediate stop to fighting and for resumption of negotiations.

Adam, whose government has helped foster previous talks between Manila and the MILF, said he was “optimistic” the two sides will come to terms and resume negotiations. “There is also a need for a cease-fire. We are recommending that,” he said after donating medicine and food to some of 40,000 evacuees from the fighting in Pikit town in North Cotabato province.

Malaysia earlier called on both sides for restraint and to resume peace negotiations.

On the resumption of peace talks, Kabalu said in a telephone interview from an undisclosed location in Mindanao: “We allow or open our door for any communications with the government.”

“It is not that we have already agreed to resume the peace talks, but somehow that (the invitation to Malaysia to mediate in the peace talks) is the starting point,” he said.

However, the MILF was exercising extra care because of renewed fighting despite a ceasefire agreement signed in Malaysia in 2001. “That is why we made it very clear that the official mediation of the Malaysian government must be observed,” he said.

March for Peace

In Davao City, tens of thousands of peace advocates marched through the streets yesterday as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo urged MILF leaders to turn over those responsible for a bomb attack outside the southern city’s airport.

The March 4 blast killed 21 people, including an American, and injured more than 100 others. Prosecutors have since filed charges against 50 MILF leaders.

Addressing some 30,000 peace advocates at Davao’s Rizal Park via telephone, Arroyo challenged the MILF to help bring the bombers to justice, citing the group’s promise to turn over criminals in their territory. She also promised the government will do its best to provide security in the Mindanao region.

“We need to bring back jobs in Mindanao so that it would develop,” she said, urging the crowd to fight terrorism.

Tough-talking Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte rejected peace talks with the MILF until the bombers are caught.

The demonstrators included militant groups, Christian and Muslim religious leaders, businessmen and some 50 members of the Moro National Liberation Front, another rebel group that signed a peace agreement with the government in 1996.

Former President Corazon Aquino spoke at a mass shortly after the rally. She called for the resumption of peace talks.