By GENALYN KABILING
The conflict in Marawi City has become the “longest” battle in recent Philippine history with over 800 militants killed by security forces, a military spokesman said yesterday.
The government has also spent “billions of pesos” to sustain the military operations against the Islamic State-linked rebels who laid siege on the city last May 23, according to Armed Forces spokesman Major Gen. Restituto Padilla Jr.
“Historically, the battle of Marawi is now the longest since World War – since the end of World War II in a single area… in the Philippines,” Padilla said during a Palace press briefing.
“To date, there are over 800 of their members who have been killed in the ongoing firefight and this has been the biggest and most significant numbers that we have done to impact on this organization and this has not happened previously,” he added.
Padilla said the terror fight in Marawi has cost the government billions, adding the military intends to ask for more funds to boost ammunition supply.
He said the ordnance dropped by the military in Marawi also exceeded the number of those used in past conflicts in Zamboanga and elsewhere.
“We have not quantified all that we have spent for this particular battle ‘no. But be that as it may, it is running already in billions of pesos, because what we have spent initially have been contingency funds from the services,” he said.
“And of course we have to replace this amount of ordnance from among our stocks and that is the subject of our request for funds right now,” he added.
Task Force Bangon Marawi spokesman Kristoffer Purisima bared that they initially requested R2 billion during a recent budget hearing in Congress.
“But hindi po ito ang kabuuan ng gastos tulad ng sabi ko dahil patuloy pa ‘yung nangyayari nga-yon diyan, kina-quantify namin to on a daily basis,” he said.
Following the killing of top two terror leaders, government troops are still pursuing 20 to 30 militants, including eight foreigners.
