Can MILF help restore peace and order?

In reference to the news “Abu Sayyaf atrocities spook foreign investors — Duterte” (3/5/19), allow me to ask this question: What is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) doing about it now that President Duterte has put its leaders in charge of large swathes of Mindanao?

There is hardly any doubt in anyone’s mind that the MILF knows who the Abu Sayyaf bandits are. Most of them are their own relatives and friends, for crying out loud! It knows how they operate in all of Mindanao and where their hideouts are. It has the force and firepower to convince them to give up their banditry or crush them anytime it wants. Yet, none of that is happening — or will ever come to pass.

Has President Duterte been made a fool of for actually believing the MILF can help him restore peace and order?

Has he forgotten that the MILF’s ultimate goal is far from irenic — the setting up of an Islamic state in Mindanao and its “liberation” and secession from so-called “Imperial Manila”?

MA. MARGARITA AYTONA, [email protected]