Philippines deploys 180,000 personnel to secure Holy Week, Ramadan celebrations

Philippines deploys 180,000 personnel to secure Holy Week, Ramadan celebrations
Philippine National Police chief Gen. Benjamin Acorda Jr. addresses an audience in Quezon City on March 14, 2024. (Philippine National Police)
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Updated 27 March 2024
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Philippines deploys 180,000 personnel to secure Holy Week, Ramadan celebrations

Philippines deploys 180,000 personnel to secure Holy Week, Ramadan celebrations
  • About 52,000 police officers are stationed at key public places, like churches, terminals 
  • Security officials say there are no threats to safety across the Philippines  

MANILA: The Philippines has deployed 180,000 security personnel across the country for Holy Week celebrations, which this year coincide with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

Around 80 percent of the Philippines’ more than 110 million people are Roman Catholics, whereas Muslims make up about 10 percent of the population.  

“Our commitment extends to ensuring the safety and security of our Catholic and Muslim brothers and sisters during this significant period of religious devotion,” Gen. Benjamin Acorda Jr., Philippine National Police chief, said.

Holy Week started on March 24 this year and will end on Easter Sunday. 

This year, the most sacred week of the Christian calendar coincides with the holy month of Ramadan that began on March 12, during which Muslims fast from dawn to dusk and offer intense prayer and charity. 

Out of the 180,000 security personnel, about 52,000 police officers will patrol key public places, such as ports, terminals, airports, churches and tourist destinations, Acorda said. 

“While our deployment has been extensive, we are attentive to specific areas that could benefit from increased police visibility … As of now, we have not received any specific threats. However, we maintain a vigilant stance.” 

In December, Daesh militants targeted a Catholic Mass in the southern Philippine city of Marawi in a bombing that killed at least four people and injured 50 others. 

Though there has been no threat alarm, authorities in the Philippines are continuously patrolling to ensure safety nationwide, with the Christian and Muslim celebrations in mind. 

“The spirit of empathy is very important. Likewise, how we treat our fellow Catholics during Lent, it’s the same with our Muslim brother during Ramadan,” Interior and Local Government Secretary Benhur Abalos told Arab News on Wednesday. 

“Definitely we have no threat, but still it is the attitude of the Philippine National Police even if there is no threat to be always prepared for anything.” 


Macron announces new Ukraine ‘coalition’ summit in Paris on March 27

Macron announces new Ukraine ‘coalition’ summit in Paris on March 27
Updated 6 sec ago
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Macron announces new Ukraine ‘coalition’ summit in Paris on March 27

Macron announces new Ukraine ‘coalition’ summit in Paris on March 27

BRUSSELS: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said the leaders of a coalition of Ukraine backers would meet again in Paris next week, hoping to finalize plans to secure a potential truce in the war with Russia.

“We will hold another meeting of the coalition of the willing next Thursday in Paris in presence of President (Volodymyr) Zelensky,” Macron told reporters following an EU summit.


Trump signs order to ‘eliminate’ US Education Department

Trump signs order to ‘eliminate’ US Education Department
Updated 12 min 5 sec ago
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Trump signs order to ‘eliminate’ US Education Department

Trump signs order to ‘eliminate’ US Education Department

North Korea’s Kim oversees test of latest anti-aircraft missile system: state media

North Korea’s Kim oversees test of latest anti-aircraft missile system: state media
Updated 14 min 58 sec ago
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North Korea’s Kim oversees test of latest anti-aircraft missile system: state media

North Korea’s Kim oversees test of latest anti-aircraft missile system: state media

SEOUL: North Korea on Thursday conducted a test fire of its latest anti-aircraft missile system in a drill watched by leader Kim Jong Un, Pyongyang’s state media reported.
The launch proved the system’s “combat fast response,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, and came just over a week after South Korea began a major annual joint military drill with the United States.


M23 group seizes key town in eastern DR Congo

M23 group seizes key town in eastern DR Congo
Updated 21 March 2025
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M23 group seizes key town in eastern DR Congo

M23 group seizes key town in eastern DR Congo
  • Capture of Walikale leaves rebels in control of road linking 4 provinces

GOMA: Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have entered the center of the eastern Congo town of Walikale, a local activist and an M23 source said on Thursday, expanding the insurgents’ presence deep into the Congolese interior despite renewed calls for a ceasefire.

Their entry into Walikale, an area rich in minerals including tin, followed fighting on Wednesday with the Democratic Republic of Congo’s army and allied militias on the outskirts of the town.

The town’s capture would leave the rebels, who took eastern Congo’s two largest cities earlier this year, in control of a road linking four eastern Congo provinces and within 400 km of Kisangani, the country’s fourth-biggest city.

“The rebels are now visible in the city’s center,” said Fiston Misona, a civil society activist in Walikale.

“There are at least seven people wounded who are at the general hospital.”

An M23 source said the rebels were in complete control of the town.

A spokesperson for Congo’s army did not respond to requests for comment about the situation in Walikale.

The rebels’ move on Walikale, a town of about 15,000 people, came despite calls on Tuesday by Congo President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame for an immediate ceasefire after their first direct talks since M23 stepped up its offensive in January.

The conflict, rooted in the fallout from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide and competition for mineral riches, has quickly become eastern Congo’s worst conflict since a 1998-2003 war that drew in multiple neighboring countries.

Rwanda has been supporting the ethnic Tutsi-led rebels by providing arms and sending troops, according to the UN, Western governments, and independent experts.

Rwanda has denied backing M23 and says its military has been acting in self-defense against Congo’s army and a militia founded by some of the perpetrators of the genocide.


Trump administration to open more Alaska acres for oil, gas drilling

Trump administration to open more Alaska acres for oil, gas drilling
Updated 21 March 2025
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Trump administration to open more Alaska acres for oil, gas drilling

Trump administration to open more Alaska acres for oil, gas drilling
  • US to lift restrictions on building an LNG pipeline and mining road in Alaska

WASHINGTON: US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Thursday announced steps to open up more acreage for oil and gas leasing and lift restrictions on building an LNG pipeline and mining road in Alaska, carrying out President Donald Trump’s executive order to remove barriers to energy development in the state.
Burgum said the agency plans to reopen the 82 percent of Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve that is available for leasing for development and reopen the 1.56-million-acre Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas leasing.
He also said the administration would revoke restrictions on land along the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Corridor and Dalton Highway north of the Yukon River and convey the land to the State of Alaska, which would pave the way forward for the proposed Ambler Road and the Alaska Liquified Natural Gas Pipeline project.
“It’s time for the US to embrace Alaska’s abundant and largely untapped resources as a pathway to prosperity for the Nation, including Alaskans,” said Burgum.
Drilling in Alaska’s pristine Arctic refuge has long been a source of friction between Alaska lawmakers and tribal corporations seeking to open more acres to drilling to spur economic growth, and Democratic presidential administrations that sought to preserve the local ecosystem and wildlife.
A January 8 lease auction that had been mandated by Congress held under the Biden administration’s Interior Department received no bids from energy companies.
The Biden administration last year rejected the Ambler Road Project, a proposed 211-mile road that would connect to a rare earths mining district.
Alaska’s Republican Governor Mike Dunleavy and the state’s congressional delegation have pushed for a reversal of Biden’s Alaska resource development policies.
The oil industry has signalled it would be hesitant to rush into Alaska given its high risk and the possibility of a political pendulum swing in four years that could put Alaska off limits again.