GENERAL Ricardo Visaya on Thursday conceded his five-month stint as chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines was not enough time to defeat the nearly three decades-old Abu Sayyaf Group in southern Mindanao.
Visaya, however, said there were essential gains his leadership had accomplished in the campaign to eliminate the ASG scourge.
“When I took over as the chief of staff, my first instruction [to our troops]: to defeat the Abu Sayyaf we have [to] neutralize first the speed of the enemy in the high seas and that happened,” he said.
To accomplish this, Visaya said they had to consult and sought authority from the marine agency of the Department of Transportation to deputize the military to confiscate suspected boats especially unregistered speedboats used by the terrorists in their kidnap-for-ransom activities.
“We are very happy that we were able to achieve our objectives of neutralizing the speed of the enemy in the high seas, that’s one [achievement],” he said.
But Visaya said the military had to excel more in another realm of battle.
“Well, just give us time because our soldiers had to familiarize themselves on the terrain [in Sulu and Basilan]. You know that the battalions that were deployed there came from as far as Cagayan Valley [Region 2], from the Bicol region, Southern Tagalog region and there is a different terrain in these places. It will really take time for our troops to familiarize [themselves] with the terrain and when the time comes I’m sure the fight against Abu Sayyaf will be much, much easier,” he explained.
After he deplored atrocities of the ASG, President Rodrigo Duterte ordered Visaya to annihilate the terrorists.
This was followed by additional deployment of Army personnel that already reached 8 to 9 battalions into Sulu and Basilan.
Despite the firepower, the handful of terrorists could still manage to elude military dragnets in land and in sea and, worse, could still skip to near Malaysia to abduct victims and bring them to Sulu for ransom negotiation.
But in an earlier interview with reporters on Wednesday, Visaya told reporters the security situation was “getting better” in Mindanao but disputed the rise of incidents of kidnappings perpetrated by the ASG.
“There is no rise of kidnapping…in fact, it was reduced. You know, when we deployed our biggest ship, the BRP Tarlac, in the waters between Malaysia and Philippines…there were two attempts (of) kidnappings (that) happened in Malaysia but they can’t (escape into the country) because of the strategic location of our naval assets there,” he explained.
Visaya also took note of another leadership accomplishment on his part.
“This is only the first time in the history of our Armed Forces to make some Abu Sayyaf surrender. It’s not surrender one by one, it was en masse, 20 of them all,” he said.