He is a man who will never accept culpability or even the possibility of error, even when caught red-handed. And that invincible pride, that unmitigated hubris will ultimately be the undoing of President Noynoy Aquino.
I’ve long observed that Aquino seems genetically programmed never to take blame, which he always passes on to his subordinates, his political enemies or even to things that he cannot possibly control, like the weather and world market forces. Nowhere is this trait of Aquino more on display than in the Jan. 25 operation in Mamapasano, Maguindanao.
Aquino would rather part with his longtime security aide, shooting instructor and Mamapasano co-conspirator, suspended Philippine National Police Director General Alan Purisima, rather than accept any blame for the fiasco that killed 44 members of the Special Action Force. The buck never stops with Aquino, as commander-in-chief or President; somebody else is always to blame.
I’m sure it was a heart-wrenching decision for both Aquino and Purisima to make. From all accounts, after all, the hush-hush operation to get Marwan, the Malaysian bomber, in Mamasapano, appears to have been dreamed up to give Purisima enough momentum to return from suspension and back to the “white house” in Camp Crame.
Purisima’s involvement in the bloody fiasco was never in doubt, especially since he appears to be the link in the parallel mini-chain of command conceived in Malacanang Palace, between Aquino and the ground commander, the relieved chief of the PNP-SAF, Director Getulio Napenas. But like the song in the musical “Miss Saigon” said, it was a plan that was apparently conceived in hell and born in strife.
The 44 members of the PNP-SAF gave their lives to rehabilitate Purisima – or, more accurately, to ensure that he was not to be rehabilitated. Had the killings not happened (and I’m sure the Mamapasano troika never imagined they would), Purisima would have returned in Camp Crame in a blaze of glory as the chief planner and implementor of the get-Marwan operation.
Instead, the death of SAF members, the elite police unit that Purisima himself once headed, threw a truck-sized monkey wrench in the plan. Marwan was “extracted,” in military parlance, but the cost was great; Aquino may have suffered political wounds that may never heal, while his loyal aide has fallen on his sword.
The higher good was served, the one that dictates that the embattled Aquino should be saved. The President can still hang on to the fantasy that he was never in on the operation, but he lost both his credibility and his chief subordinate in the bargain.
Perhaps Aquino should set aside his favorite biblical quote, the one that says that the truth shall set us free. In its stead, I’d like to propose the one that tells us that pride comes before the fall.
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With the resignation of Purisima yesterday, the big winner is clearly Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas. And Roxas can deny all he wants that he never engaged in a shouting match with Aquino over Roxas’ demand to fire Purisima and the secretary’s chief rival for the President’s attention, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa – the fact that the suspended police chief has resigned means that Roxas has triumphed in his bid to extract Purisima from the PNP and the palace.
This is why I never believed that Roxas would resign in the aftermath of the Mamapasano incident, no matter how loud the noise got. In keeping with his opportunistic nature, Roxas quickly saw that his being kept out of the loop in the get-Marwan operation could be turned into his advantage in his unending war as leader of the “Balay” faction with Ochoa’s “Samar” group, which counts Purisima as one of its top members.
Roxas found himself mostly unhurt by the fiasco, even if he was made to look like a fool for parroting the “mis-encounter” theory originally floated by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front to absolve itself of any blame. The would-be successor of the Aquino legacy found that he could take the offensive and demand the head of Ochoa, or at least of Purisima; Roxas would strike a big blow against Samar, while getting rid of Purisima and replacing him with a PNP chief more to his liking.
It’s no secret in Malacanang that Roxas always considered Purisima as a hindrance to his own bid to grab absolute power over the PNP. The suspension of the police chief for six months over allegations of corruption has been widely believed to have been engineered by Roxas, in order to replace the controversial – but obviously very well-connected – former bodyguard of the President with someone who is more malleable to the secretary’s own ambition.
Make no mistake: Purisima’s removal benefited Roxas. It was what Roxas wanted, whether or not he did make a scene to convince Aquino to get it done.
Overall, it was a good day for political machination. Now, if someone will only devote similar attention to the plight of the dead cops’ families, and their calls for justice and the resignation of Aquino.