Armed Forces of the Philippine chief, Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., on Tuesday nixed the idea of declaring martial law in Lanao del Sur amid the bombing incident in Marawi City's Mindanao State University campus on Sunday.

Admitting that the bombing could be a retaliatory attack from the militant groups who have been subjected to successive military operations, Brawner said the terrorists can no longer repeat the 2017 Marawi Siege as they do not have the numbers.

"There's no need because your security forces are on top of the situation, and as I said, we believe that they will not be able to launch another attack with the magnitude of the Marawi siege," Brawner said in a television interview when asked if there's a need to declare martial law in the blast area.

Brawner reiterated that man-hunt operations against the two persons of interest in the Marawi bombing are ongoing.

"In the meantime, your Armed Forces is already conducting a manhunt, a massive operation to go against the perpetrators of this incident," he said. "They operate in the same area, so we are running after them, and hopefully, very soon, we'll have results."

Brawner said the Philippine National Police have heightened their alert status while the AFP has declared red alert status "to make sure that our troops are on their toes and making sure that these types of incidents will not happen again."

On the other hand, Brawner believed that it was not the failure of intelligence but a lack of security measures that led to the bombing in the area.