President Rodrigo Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday he would not declare martial amid protests over the burial of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos and renewed fighting in Mindanao.

"Martial law for what? Killing people?," Duterte said in a speech in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Local Government Summit in Davao City.

Duterte said he would rather empower the local government units to address security concerns in their respective areas. He said they may ask the help of the military.

But he said local officials could not make illegal orders to the military, such as to engage in illegal drugs. Otherwise, Duterte said he would order soldiers to kill the local officials.

"But if the order of martial law would come from me, that's foolishness. We had martial law before, but what happened? Did our life become better? Not," he said.

Duterte said those in Metro Manila were waiting for him to get mad until he decides to declare martial law.

Rallies were held recently in Metro Manila denouncing the burial of late President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. There were concerns Duterte might also declare martial law similar to what Marcos did in the wake of the clashes between the government troops and the local terrorist Maute Group and the foiled bomb explosion near the United States Embassy in Manila last week.

Duterte said the terrorism problem, particularly in Mindanao, was a product of colonialism.

"It was started a very long time ago. Not by the people of Mindanao, but by the colonialists. They started the killing. They started the plunder of the land and they lived off the fat of Mindanao," he said, referring to the Spaniards and the Americans.

"So it is just a reaction of a person who has been deprived by the most precious thing of Allah’s possessions and that is land. What is said to be Muslim rebellion or a Moro rampage, there is actually the Moro nationalism. To put it correctly in the proper perspective," he said.

To address this problem, Duterte reiterated the need for a federal government.

He promised to leave his post even if his six-year term has not ended once Congress approves a federal form of government.

Duterte assured he would not be interested to become a president under this new form of government.

Duterte said he would accept his presidency is a failure if his administration could not reach a peace pact with the communist rebels and could not form a federal set up.

"If I cannot work out a system after Oslo in Norway, I cannot work on the federal setup and make it work, then I would tell you, I am a failure, and I would concede my being a President," he said.

Norway is brokering the talks between the government and the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front. Celerina Monte/DMS