RP senator slams 'all-out support' for U.S. attack

RP senator slams 'all-out support' for U.S. attack

MANILA (AFP): Philippine President Gloria Arroyo's all-out support for an anti-terror coalition led by the United States was slammed on Sunday, with critics saying she might be putting the Philippines at risk.

Opposition Senator Gregorio Honasan said that declaration of war must rest with Congress, not with the Filipino president.

Arroyo on Saturday declared her government would provide "whatever support is needed and we are capable of doing" for U.S. President George W. Bush's efforts to build an international coalition to wage war on terrorists blamed for Tuesday's attacks in the United States.

Two Filipinos were killed and 115 others were missing from the attacks, which claimed more than 5,000 lives, officials said.

Arroyo declared a "national day of prayer and solidarity against terrorism," and attended mass at a Roman Catholic cathedral in Manila with other top officials. The U.S. embassy charge d'affaires, Michael Malinowski, also attended the mass.

"We have done all we can. We are proactively preparing for the evacuation of Filipino overseas workers, our financial managers are preparing proactively for the backlash," Honasan said over ABS-CBN television here.

"Beyond that we should rethink carefully our next move, because this might endanger the lives of our people and affect our ability to survive any global conflict."

Honasan said offering the U.S. government "whatever we can afford (by way of humanitarian support is in order, but hosting any war material that may come as a result of this posturing is something we (legislators) have to decide."

Manila has a 50 year-old mutual defense treaty with Washington, however its Senate ended a military basing arrangement for US forces in the Philippines in 1991.

The 1987 constitution also bars nuclear weapons and nuclear- armed vessels on Philippine territory.

Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas, said to have links with Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born prime suspect in the U.S. attacks, hold 18 hostages in the southern island of Basilan including an American Christian missionary couple.

"We might provoke those sympathetic to bin Laden here (who would) bomb metro Manila or elsewhere," University of the Philippines Asian studies professor Benito Lim told the station.

"We should not commit ourselves to the point of national suicide."

Honasan said: "We should refine that (Arroyo) statement some more, make it more categorical."

National Defense College president Clarita Carlos said Manila's mutual defense pact with Washington did not provide for automatic retaliation in case of an attack on either partner, saying the Philippines had the luxury of calibrating its contribution.

"But if we are really strategic partners of the U.S., then we should really go all out for it," Carlos told ABS-CBN.

At the memorial service Cardinal Jaime Sin, the archbishop of Manila, said Filipinos "share in the anguish and sorrow of the American nation," and "support the American government in its humane resolve to put an end to this horrendous catastrophe."

But he urged the wronged parties to "let vengeance give way to healing, anger give way to reconciliation, and death give way to life."