Military to deploy more troops in Basilan

The military is planning to deploy more troops in Basilan province in southern Philippines, but a Mindanao-based official said it has nothing to do with the Oct. 18 clash with Moro rebels in Al-Barka town that left 19 soldiers dead. According to Lt. Col. Randolph Cabangbang, spokesman of the Armed Forces’ Western Mindanao Command, they have been planning about the deployment of more troops even before the Al-Barka incident. “We have been long planning to deploy an infantry brigade in Basilan, but it’s only a headquarters brigade, not a brigade with three battalions," he said. In Manila, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesman Col. Arnulfo Burgos said the deployment “is one of the options being considered by the AFP." “There are numerous factors being weighed and studied to further improve our performance in accomplishing our mission in the fulfillment of our mandates," Burgos said. “Realignment of security forces and redeployment of units happen periodically and may be done anytime with the fluidity of the threat environment that the AFP is confronting," he added. Cabangbang said the team that will be sent to Basilan will be the “controlling brigade" to the existing Special Operations Task Force-Basilan, whose commander, Col. Alexander Macario, was relieved over alleged lapses in the Oct. 18 incident, where the military suffered its biggest number of fatalities in nearly five years. “An infantry brigade is capable of intelligence operation, civil military operation, while the one currently deployed, the Special Forces, [is] heavy on direct operations," he said. - KBK, GMA News