U.S. envoy defends RP travel advisory

U.S. envoy defends RP travel advisory

Agencies, Manila

U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone on Monday defended a new advisory cautioning Americans from traveling to certain parts of the Philippines because of safety concerns, asking whether Filipinos would themselves risk going to those places.

Faced by a barrage of media questions about the travel advisory issued by Washington last week, Ricciardone asked one journalist: "You're a Filipino. Would you go to take a vacation in Jolo?"

The surprised reporter didn't respond.

Jolo is a notoriously violent and impoverished southern island rife with Moro guerrillas and bandits where unlicensed guns are said to outnumber its predominantly Muslim population. A faction of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf, a group notorious for beheadings and kidnappings for ransom, has a presence in its forested hilly hinterlands.

The Abu Sayyaf rose to international infamy in 2000 when it abducted 21 Western tourists and Asian workers from Malaysia and hid them on Jolo, about 940 kilometers south of Manila.

The new travel advisory reiterated a previous warning to Americans on the danger of traveling to Jolo and other areas where Moro and communist insurgents are active.

The U.S. advisory said the terrorist threat to Americans in the Philippines remains high and advised them to avoid crowds and exercise caution in public places such as shopping malls or when using public transport because of the possibility of attacks similar to the bombing of Indonesia's Bali tourist resort last year.

Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye has described the advisory as "baseless." National security adviser Roilo Golez told a forum attended by Ricciardone on Monday that the advisory was inappropriate because Americans were safe in the Philippines, "probably safer than in some parts of the U.S."

Furthermore, the ambassador said on Monday that Washington is concerned over possible ties between foreign-based terror groups and Moro rebels holding peace talks with the Philippine government.

Ricciardone's comments followed charges by Singapore that Philippine Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) separatists had allowed Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) militants, who allegedly planned to bomb Western targets in the city-state, to train in their camps. As far as Washington is concerned "the jury is still out on the MILF," said Ricciardone.

Washington has placed Philippines-based Abu Sayyaf rebels as well as the communist New People's Army guerrilla group on its blacklist of "foreign terrorist organizations".

"We're very concerned though about what we understand to be the MILF's ties to other people outside the Philippines," he told a Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines conference.

He also cited the MILF's "tolerance" of "kidnappers in their neighborhood" of the mainly Muslim western section of the southern island of Mindanao.

"If they're not engaging in these things themselves then it seems sometimes they're letting these bad people run around in an area where they are the law and they have not permitted the government of the Philippines to be the law."

However, Ricciardone said the U.S. appreciated the efforts of President Gloria Arroyo to strike a political settlement with the 12,500-member guerrilla group, which has been mounting a low- level insurgency to establish an Islamic state in the southern third of the mainly Catholic archipelago.