(Adds comments from local human rights commission) MANILA, March 13 (Reuters) - Philippine troops plan to start visiting mosques and madrasas in the capital of the Roman Catholic nation to learn more about the community, but local Muslims said they were viewing the plans with suspicion. The army has come in for sharp criticism after it deployed soldiers around slum areas of the capital, leading to charges that troops were conducting an invisible campaign against left-wing activists ahead of congressional elections in May. Major-General Benjamin Dolorfino, commander of military units in the sprawling capital of 12 million people, said on Monday that troops would hold a series of meetings to know more about the Muslim community's problems and offer them solutions. An estimated 800,000 Muslims reside in metropolitan Manila. "The idea here is that rather than imposing the right-handed approach -- military operations -- we're offering the left-hand approach or enhancing community-based relations," Dolorfino told reporters after briefing soldiers to be sent out to Muslim areas. "The primary approach is dialogue aimed at knowing the problems and eventually bringing in the stakeholders so that we can bring solutions to the community's problems." Community leaders at a Muslim village in Tagig City said on Tuesday they were worried about the real intention of the soldiers' visits. "We're not against deployment of soldiers in our villages," Nasruddin Amerol, one of the community leaders, told Reuters. "As long as we would be informed of the real purpose of their stay, we're happy to host them." Amerol said he could not blame some Muslim residents if they feared the presence of soldiers because of their past experiences in the south, where four Islamic rebel groups have been fighting the government for nearly 40 years. "They're welcome here as long as they respect our culture and our religion. We're not allowing them inside our mosques unless there are Muslims among them," he added. The local Commission on Human Rights on Tuesday criticised the deployment of soldiers in slum communities, saying they had found evidence to show the troops may be violating the right to assemble and freedom of expression. "Our teams observed them and we found some groups have become afraid of organising meetings in areas where soldiers were deployed," Purificacion Quisumbing, head of the independent rights body, told a radio interview on Tuesday. She said she would recommend the pull out of troops in slum communities in the capital and for the military to stop visits to other urban centres. But, soldiers defended their actions, saying there were no complaints from residents in these communities, denying alleged electioneering accusations from left-wing political groups. Dolorfino, himself a Muslim, said weekly visits of troops to traditional Islamic meeting places would deny militants "potential sanctuary, where they can plot to explode bombs in the cities". "We're trying to hit so many birds with just one stone," he said.
