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.