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Duterte issues travel warning for Zamboanga


President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday urged tourists not to travel to Zamboanga for now as he raised the atrocities committed by the Abu Sayyaf against foreigners.

Duterte gave the statement at the 7th Union Asia Pacific Regional Conference in Pasay City which was attended by health experts in the region.

“There is a certain place which I would not recommend to anybody to go there, not just as yet --- is Zamboanga,” he said.

“Some Europeans go there for a bird-watching. And they are captured; and eventually they are decapitated even after the payment of ransom. It’s the ISIS actually. It used to be the Abu Sayyaf --- it’s a band of brigands but now it’s an Abu Sayyaf territory.”

Duterte again lambasted Abu Sayyaf’s ideology which he said was “nothing but to kill and destroy.”

“That’s a mass insanity,” he said.

Early this month, Duterte said the Islamic State would not be able to gain foothold during his administration because of the military's efforts to thwart them.

Some foreign governments such as Australia  and the United Kingdom, had asked their citizens to exercise a high degree of caution whenever they would travel to the Philippines, especially in parts of Mindanao.

The entire island group has been under martial law since ISIS-inspired Maute rebels made an unsuccessful attempt to establish a caliphate for the terror organization in 2017. — RSJ, GMA News

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