MANILA — The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has yet to detect any sign of the presence of 40 alleged terrorists who managed to infiltrate the country via the maritime route.
This was stressed by AFP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Bienvinido Datuin during a press briefing in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City Tuesday.
“Wala pa tayong confirmed dito. (We have not confirmed this yet.) We are awaiting reports from ground commanders regarding this matter,” he added.
In line with this, the AFP spokesperson said that all units in the Western Mindanao Command were closely monitoring the coastal waters in the area, which was of considerable size, as part of the effort to detect the terrorists.
“We are closely monitoring this dahil napakalaki ng ating coastal waters sa ating area (because the coastal waters in our area is huge) but forces in Western Mindanao Command, 1st Infantry Division, are closely guarding our coastal waters, southern borders,” he added.
Also, Datuin said that they were being aided by the Philippine National Police and Coast Guard regarding the matter. This was aside from the patrol agreement with Malaysia and Indonesia, he added.
“We have established agreements bilateral joint patrols with Malaysia, Indonesia just to secure our waters so tuloy tuloy ang ating monitoring (our monitoring is ongoing) and we are not letting up (in securing our sea frontiers),” Datuin stressed. (Priam Nepomuceno/PNA)
