Duterte is widely expected to win approval for martial law in the region until the end of the year, with troops fighting to wrest back the southern city of Marawi following two months of fighting.
The military said about 60 Islamic State group-inspired gunmen are left in a 49-hectare (121-acre) area of Marawi, while Duterte said he needed martial law powers to rebuild the city and ensure the war did not spread elsewhere.
“I cannot afford to be complacent,” Duterte told reporters Friday, adding the military will be conducting further “mopping up operations” even after they recapture Marawi.
“If there is a spillage it will not be as bad if you have this stopgap,” he added.
Duterte imposed a 60-day martial rule — the maximum period allowed by the constitution — over the Mindanao region on May 23 within hours of the gunmen beginning their rampage.
On Monday he asked Congress to extend it until the end of the year.
A slide presentation accompanying Duterte’s request, seen by AFP, compared the Marawi crisis to the IS takeover of the Iraqi city of Mosul.
Most of the militants’ leaders remain at large, it said, while about 90 of the gunmen have slipped past security cordons and can link up with other armed groups in the region to mount similar widescale attacks.
Marawi itself could now become a magnet for foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria, it added.
Martial law allows the military to establish control with measures such as curfews, checkpoints and gun controls in a country where civilians are authorized to keep licensed firearms in their homes.
However, any martial law extension must be approved by Congress.
“I am amenable to it,” House of Representatives justice committee chairman Reynaldo Umali, a key Duterte ally, said in a television interview on Friday.
House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has said previously he sees no roadblock to its swift approval by both chambers of Congress.
Duterte had already beaten back a Supreme Court petition to declare martial law in Mindanao illegal.
But opposition politicians have criticized Duterte’s proposal for a martial law extension, with some alleging it is part of a Duterte plot to eventually bring the country under a military-backed dictatorship.
“Once he feels that there is not enough opposition to a nationwide martial law declaration, he will go for it,” Senator Antonio Trillanes told AFP on Tuesday.
After this he could declare a revolutionary government to allow him to stay in office beyond his six-year electoral term in mid-2022, Trillanes said.
Duterte, 72, however, emphasized that he has no plan to stay in office beyond his term, and that he only had the country’s best interest in mind. Agence France Presse
