Manila: Philippines' former president Joseph Estrada on Sunday ignored a 'fatwa' by Muslim elders branding him an enemy of Islam and warned separatist rebels of an "all out war" if he wins re-election to the post.
Estrada said he was confident the religious edict issued last week by the Bangsamoro Supreme Council, a grouping of Islamic scholars and elders in the south, would not be supported by the region's five million Muslims.
He also warned the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has been waging a bloody rebellion since 1978, to disarm or risk being crushed by the army under his command if he won in the May polls.
"I am a friend of Islam, and I respect Islam," Estrada said in Manila shortly after arriving from a weekend campaign in Mindanao, where over 150,000 people have been killed in the long-running insurgency.
"However, I will not tolerate any organization regardless of religion if they violate the law," he said.
He said the MILF must put down their weapons if they want to negotiate peace with any future Estrada government.
"I want them to disarm, and if they don't, then I will go on an all-out war against them again. We have already exhausted all peaceful remedies against them, and enough is enough," he said.
"A president's duty is to protect the territorial integrity of the country at all cost," he stressed.
PTI
First Published: Sunday, March 21, 2010, 14:08