Your accounts of the siege of Marawi by the AFP and PNP carried statements (I do not know how accurate they were) from the AFP commanders interviewed that for months they were following reports from their intelligence operatives on the movement of those terrorists into Marawi. It would seem that the AFP disastrously and belatedly gave credence to what then was raw intelligence. And worse, nobody is even talking about what was the participation of the Marawi residents in the gradual build-up of war materiel and influx of those local and foreign Islamic State advocates and wannabes.
No one, but no one, ever told the mayor or the police or the Army of those people and their firearms? Many of those firearms are hard to conceal. The ammunition for the different firearms and explosives gradually brought in are in the thousands, as shown by the fact that up to now those terrorists are still putting up fierce resistance. Those were brought in gradually for days and weeks and even months. How could those foreign IS fighters get into Marawi and hide for months without the knowledge of the residents?
The thing blew up only when one man, perhaps, wanted to lay claim to the millions of dollars offered by Americans for the capture of Hapilon as well as the millions of pesos as reward money offered by the government, and told the military about the presence of Hapilon. And the police sent to arrest him made that monumental blunder of thinking he was alone. Ah, greed is a mighty incentive, indeed. Now the government promises to rebuild Marawi. So that it will be used again by the Abus and BIFF and IS fighters?
ROCKY B. DENOGA