MANILA, 19 October 2003 — US President George W. Bush yesterday promised to help the Philippines defeat terrorism by aiding in the modernization of its military.
“The terrorists will continue their missions of murder and suicide until they are stopped. And we will stop them,” Bush told a joint session of the Philippine Congress.
He and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo agreed to beef up their military cooperation, including intensifying an already existing partnership to boost joint efforts to defeat Al-Qaeda-linked militant extremist groups that operate in the islands.
Arroyo said: “We must close ranks and stand firm against terrorist threats, however grave.” Bush’s visit was brief due to concerns about potential terrorist activity.
During an earlier picture-taking session with Arroyo, the president praised the Philippine leader’s anti-terror fight, and said the threat here from the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf extremist group was particularly dangerous.
“It’s serious because there are no rules when it comes to a crowd like Abu Sayyaf — they kidnap, they kill, they maim,” Bush told reporters. He called Arroyo a “strong and stalwart leader.” Bush, pointing to the recent killing of an Abu Sayyaf leader and the capture of others, and said “the success against this particular group is a model for the region.”
In talks that lasted about an hour, Bush told Arroyo “we will do what we can to assist” in modernizing the Philippine Army, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the session.
That will include delivery of 20 refurbished Huey military helicopters, said the official.
He said the US contribution would be mostly in the form of advisers and technical assistance — the kind of help the United States has already been providing — and that the price tag had yet to be determined. The Philippine government itself was expected to come up with “hundreds of millions” of dollars, the official said.
Toasting her state dinner guest, who wore a traditional Philippine barong open-necked shirt for the evening festivities, Arroyo said the US-Philippine “relationship has ripened.”
The first US president to address the Philippine Congress since Dwight Eisenhower in 1960, Bush thanked the country for its early support of US policy in Iraq. The Philippines has sent about 100 soldiers, police and health workers to Iraq.
He said “bombings and kidnappings and brutal murders of the innocent” in the Philippines and the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the US meant both countries have “seen the enemy on our own soil.”
