The Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Department of National Defense will conduct a joint inquiry into the encounter Monday in Samar province in which Army troopers shot and killed six policemen and injured nine others.
“This is a very unfortunate event that nobody wanted to happen. Together with the DND, we will form a board of inquiry to investigate the incident in order to determine the cause of this unfortunate event and draw up measures to prevent the same from happening again,” DILG officer-in-charge Secretary Eduardo Año said in a statement.
A ranking military official himself said operational lapses were seen as a factor leading to the death of the six mistaken by soldiers as the hostile force, sparking the gunfire from the latter’s side.
The fight was described as a misencounter in an anti-terrorist operation in the forested sitio of Lunoy, Barangay San Roque, Sta. Rita in Samar.
Maj. Gen. Raul Farnacio, commander of the Army’s 8th Infantry Division, said there had been minor lapses committed which triggered the firefight between soldiers and policemen, both on a counter-insurgency operation at the time of the unfortunate incident.
When asked who to be blamed on the lapses, “either PNP or Army,” Farnacio said without specifying the kind of lapses, “I don’t want to pre-empt the investigation…”
The police contingent was at the vicinity of Sitio Lunoy in the same town when fired upon by undetermined armed men, prompting them to retaliate.
After a lull in the fighting, it was learned the armed men the policemen had encountered were army troopers from the 87th Infantry Battalion who were on an anti-insurgency operation.
Farnacio declined to blame anybody for the death of the six policemen but hinted on the need for a more established coordination in the manner of operations.
Año said the board would also seek answers and summon concerned officials on why prior communication and coordination were not made between local military and police forces in the conduct of combat operations in the area.
“There are existing protocols between the Philippine National Police [PNP] and the Armed Forces of the Philippines [AFP] in field operations. We will try to determine why these were not followed and if these need review and modifications,” he said.
In Leyte, senior officials of the Philippine Army and Philippine National Police vowed there would be a thorough investigation over Monday’s misencounter between the two sides.
“Normally, we really have coordination. We created a special task force group to look into the aspect of cooperation. This afternoon [of Tuesday], the independent fact-finding body from Manila will arrive,” Chief Supt. Mariel Magaway, director of the Police Regional Office in Eastern Visayas, told a news conference at the police headquarters at Camp Ruperto Kangleon, Palo, Leyte.
To shed more light more light over the incident, Maj. Gen. Raul Farnacio, commander of the Army’s 8th Infantry Division and along with other officials, also helped field newsmen’s questions.
“If we go to the nitty-gritty of the investigation, then we’ll find it,” said Farnacio as he tried to illustrate the difference between the “culture” of the police and the army.
“But on the nitty-gritty, we’ll stall have to talk more. Coordination is very important,” Farnacio said.
“When you’re in a hostile area, you have to be alert at all times,” he added, noting that the enemies were not known.
According to the military official, the New People’s Army, the guerrilla front of the Communist Party of the Philippines, also used government-issued uniforms when they would infiltrate local government units.
He said that there were decisions that could not be avoided which resulted in accidents.
The army’s platoon leader revealed that the terrain was “vegetated.”
This, according to him, created a problem in identifying the other forces.
The army said the police were in a lower ground while the army were in the higher ground.
They couldn’t clearly recognize the uniform of the leading elements because their combat shirts were “already muddy,” the army added.
As the army also found out that the opposing party had firearms, this also prompted the elements from Charlie Company, 87th Infantry Battalion headed by 1Lt. Orlando Casipit Jr and his 16 men to shot.
“We are really very saddened by this incident as both troops were just doing their jobs of going against lawless elements and protecting the community,” Año said.
The DILG chief also expressed his condolences to the families of the slain cops as he assured them of the immediate release of financial assistance due them under the Comprehensive Social Benefits Program.
A military official said Tuesday the incident would not dampen the cooperation between the AFP and PNP.
“Despite this challenge, we will continue to perform our mandate alongside the Philippine National Police to serve the interest and protect the well-being of the people,” Philippine Army spokesman Lt. Col. Louie Villanueva said in text message to reporters.
He also extended the Army’s condolences to the families of the slain and wounded police officers.
To address the incident, he said the Army and the PNP had created a special investigating body that would determine the gaps and lapses in the operation. With PNA