Yesterday on live tv, Filipinos watched a scene as horrific and as demoralizing as the 2001 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York—the steady parade of scores of coffins containing the cadavers of 42 police commandos killed in the botched Jan. 25, 2015 operation in Mamasapano, Maguindanao. The President of the Philippines, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police was not there to receive his fallen men at Villamor Air Base. What are our leaders doing? What have we become of us, as a nation?
Three top Philippine officials ordered and directed the operation to capture two of Southeast Asia’s leading terrorists—Zulkipli Bin Hir, alias Abu Marwan, and his Filipino cohort, Abdulbasit Usman, on Jan. 25.
This is a conclusion one invariably makes after watching the President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III read a prepared 2,200-word statement on live television Wednesday, Jan. 28 evening, four days after the horrific and mismanaged operation.
Wednesday, BS Aquino also conceded to a brief press conference. Three questions were asked of him centering on whether he knew about the operation and whether he ordered it.
His answers were a classic in evasion, obfuscation and mental dishonesty. They didn’t add to a leader and a commander-in-chief on top of things and caring for his people, one for whom the national interest is primordial and non-negotiable.
The operation began shortly after 4 a.m. of Jan. 25, a Sunday. By noon, at least 44 crack policemen of the Philippine National Police’s Special Action Force (SAF) were dead, and 16 were wounded, including three civilians.
Aquino called the 44 killed policemen and 13 wounded policemen “heroes” but said so in a very indirect manner. “If there is a definition of a hero, they (the dead and wounded) are the ones,” he related in Pilipino, “they who faced danger to prevent a threat to our security; they who were wounded, they who offered their lives in the name of peace.” He declared today, Friday, Jan. 30, a National Day of Mourning “as a symbol of grief (pagdadalamhati) and condolence (pakikiramay) of our entire nation.” In short, BS Aquino was half-hearted in honoring our “heroes”. Which may explain why he was not at Villamor to receive their cadavers.
In fact, Aquino devoted more than half of his seven-page statement narrating the depredations of Marwan and Usman, not on the heroism of the dead and wounded policemen for whom he spent exactly 59 words in calling them heroes.
It is easy to see why. In his Jan. 28 press statement, Aquino seems to blame the SAF, specifically its chief, Getulio Napeñas for the botched operation and for not making an adequate and timely coordination. He didn’t denounce the killers and perpetrators of the carnage, the BIFF (Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters) and the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front).
“I repeatedly stressed the need for proper, adequate and timely coordination. The terrain was complicated. The soil is muddy, there are swamplands, and marshes and you needed to cross a river to reach the destination of the SAF,” the President explained in Pilipino. “There are so many forces spread all over the place. There is the BIFF, MILF, and even private armed groups.” “Even if the MIFF and BIFF are separate units, many of them are related, by blood and by marriage. Strangers cannot just enter the place. The troops needed stealth and silence to penetrate; otherwise the targets would be alerted. Specially so, since the SAF was not that big a force compared to those who surrounded them, it was essential for the Armed Forces to be on standby so that it could position its troops, equipment, and armaments like howitzers in the event the policemen needed support.”
“In my repeated reminders on the need for coordination, the SAF director told me, ‘yes, sir’. He (the SAF director) simply told me, ‘I needed operational security’, or the requirement that only those who needed to know must be informed,” Aquino said in his statement.
Consequently, only commander-in-chief, BS Aquino, and his disgraced Philippine National Police chief, Alan Purisima, and Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa, who provided logistics, knew about the Jan. 25 attempt to arrest Marwan and Usman.
Four days after the carnage of the commandos, Aquino refused to admit he gave a direct order to extricate by stealth Marwan and Usman from enemy lair in Mamasapano. The President only said that since 2002 there had been outstanding warrants against the two, nine for Usman and two for Marwan.
“If there is a warrant, it is the duty of every lawman to enforce it,” Aquino said in Pilipino. “My job,” he said, “is ensure that they (the lawmen) do their responsibility.” He also admitted ordering the PNP Special Action Force (SAF) to ensure adequate coordination with the Army (the Western Mindanao Command and the 6th Infantry Division which were operating in the area). “Minimum compliance was stretched to the limit,” Aquino explained in Pilipino. In other words, no coordination. “We needed operational security,” the SAF chief, Getulio Napeñas reportedly told Aquino, meaning nobody but the top SAF men should know about the operation beforehand. Even Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas was not informed.
Quoting Napeñas, Aquino claimed the SAF killed Marwan, got his DNA but failed to get his body.
Aquino went to Zamboanga City on Sunday, Jan. 25, the D-Day of the operation, ostensibly to check on a car bombing incident. However, the Manila Standard reported that the President was there to receive Marwan and Usman, in case the SAF captured them. When the mission failed, he went back to Manila, disappointed. He was unheard of from Sunday evening to early Wednesday evening when he addressed the nation live on television.
Marwan was a member of the Central Committee of Jemaah Islamiyah responsible for the Bali bombing that killed 2002 victims. Usman is blamed for the General Santos bombing of 2002 that killed 15 and wounded 60. Both Marwan and Usman conducted acts of terrorism in various parts of Mindanao.
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