President refuses to impose emergency to crush extremists

MANILA — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte rejected proposals on Wednesday for him to declare a state of emergency on a violent southern island to more rapidly defeat Abu Sayyaf extremists, who killed 15 soldiers in his government’s largest single-day combat loss so far.

Duterte also announced that government troops and police would not enforce a warrant of arrest for prominent rebel leader Nur Misuari, who leads one of two large Muslim insurgent groups in the country’s south, so they could talk.

While Duterte has pursued talks with Misuari’s Moro National Liberation Front and the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front, he has ordered troops to destroy the smaller but more brutal Abu Sayyaf, which is notorious for bombings, ransom kidnappings and beheadings.

A massive military offensive in Sulu, a predominantly Muslim province where the Abu Sayyaf has had a long presence in lush jungles, has left 30 militants dead, including an influential commander. The Abu Sayyaf, however, struck back on Monday as the country was celebrating national heroes’ day, and killed 15 soldiers, including one officer, in fighting off Sulu’s mountainous Patikul town.

Asked if he would relent to a longstanding proposal by military officials to place Sulu under a state of emergency to allow government forces to arrest militants more easily and take tougher action against local officials conniving with the Abu Sayyaf, the usually boorish Duterte said he would not. “No, it’s just punitive police action by the security forces of the government,” Duterte said at a news conference. “The magnitude of the trouble there does not warrant anything except the industry of the” military and police.

The magnitude of the trouble there (in Sulu) does not warrant anything except the industry of the military and police. Rodrigo Duterte