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Manila: Hundreds of Muslim ethnic groups used drums and gongs in a noise barrage meant to drive away American soldiers who were billeted in a resort since the start of their joint mission with Filipino soldiers in the southern Philippines, a local paper said.
"We will not stop our noise barrage until the US soldiers leave Marawi City and the province of Lanao del Sur," Haj Abdullah Dalidig, head of the Muslim Multi-sectoral Movement for Peace and Development, told the Sun Star.
"We will drive away the evil US soldiers," said Dalidig, one of the hundreds of Maranaos who held a protest rally at the gates of the Marawi Resort in Mindanao State University on Tuesday.
"The Moro people have experienced all forms of violations from these foreign contingents," said Ustadz Ebrahim Sarip, convener of a group called "US Troops Out Now!"
The Philippine Army posted soldiers to protect the resort.
Early this month, the local government unit of Marawi City passed a resolution demanding that American soldiers should stay away from Lanao del Sur.
Seventeen congressmen passed a resolution at the House of Representatives urging President Gloria Arroyo to stop the deployment of US soldiers in Lanao del Sur and in other parts of Mindanao.
The southern region is the turf of an estimated five million Muslims who have been living uneasily with a growing Christian community.
Anti-US demonstrators were initially barred from entering the town of Pikit, in North Cotabato on Monday, said Zaynab Datumanong Ampatuan, secretary-general of the Suara Bangsamoro, a party listed at the lower house of Congress.
Several other groups from Kidapawan City and other towns in North Cotabato succeeded in holding a silent anti-US protest rally in Pikit town.
The United States Embassy in Manila said this year's Philippine-US exercises, codenamed "Balikatan [arm in arm], will not include military exercises or war games. For two weeks, some 600 US soldiers will conduct 23 humanitarian missions such as building schools, roads and bridges and medical missions," said the embassy.
The joint US-Philippine teams will also offer free medical, dental, and veterinary care, said the US embassy, adding the US soldiers will be working with Filipino civilians and military men.
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