The Philippines said Wednesday there was no evidence that the country was being used for terrorist training, a day after it was revealed the men behind Australia's Bondi Beach mass shooting had spent November on a southern island known for Islamist insurgencies.
"(President Ferdinand Marcos) strongly rejects the sweeping statement and the misleading characterisation of the Philippines as the ISIS training hotspot," presidential spokeswoman Claire Castro said at a press briefing,
"No evidence has been presented to support claims that the country was used for terrorist training," she added, reading from a National Security Council statement.
"There is no validated report or confirmation that individuals involved in the Bondi Beach incident received any form of training in the Philippines."
On Tuesday, the country's immigration office confirmed that Sajid Akram and his son Naveed, who killed 15 people and wounded dozens of others at a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney's Bondi Beach, entered the country on November 1 headed for the southern province of Davao.
The island of Mindanao, where Davao is located, has a long history of Islamist insurgencies against central government rule.
Australian authorities are investigating whether the two men met with extremists during the trip.
The Philippine military, however, said Wednesday that armed Muslim groups still operating on Mindanao had been largely degraded in the years since the siege of Marawi.
The five-month battle for the city that pitted government forces against pro-Islamic State Maute and Abu Sayyaf militants claimed more than 1,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
"We have not recorded any major terrorist operations or training activities... since the beginning of 2024," Philippine military spokeswoman Colonel Francel Padilla said at a morning press briefing.
"They are fragmented, and they have no leadership," she added of the insurgent groups.
Colonel Xerxes Trinidad told reporters the father-and-son duo's November trip to the Philippines would not have provided adequate time for significant training.
"Training cannot be acquired in just 30 days ... especially if you are to undergo marksmanship (training)," he said.
But Rommel Banlaoi, a Manila-based security analyst, told AFP that while many insurgent groups were "on the run", they were far from eradicated.
"There are still many active training camps in (central) Mindanao. Those did not disappear," he told AFP, adding even weakened insurgent movements maintained connections "locally and globally online".