On this, we agree with the Solicitor General. This week, as the nation commemorated the third anniversary of the Mamasapano massacre, the government lawyer asked the Supreme Court to indict former President Benigno Aquino III for reckless imprudence resulting in multiple homicide for the deaths of the 44 members of the Special Action Force who perished in the operation.
The men were supposed to arrest two suspected terrorists in the town. They neutralized one, cut off his finger to prove it, but they were later killed by Moro rebels in the latter’s lair.
The Office of the Ombudsman had earlier dismissed homicide raps against the former president—along with former Philippine National Police chief Director General Alan Purisima and former Special Action Force chief Getulio Napeñas—and charged him with graft and usurpation of authority instead.
We struggled to understand why Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales decided this way and we found no compelling reason except for the possibility that she was a grateful, loyal appointee of Mr. Aquino.
Indeed the former president bore responsibility for the operation that sent the men to their deaths. He also allowed a then-suspended police chief to be involved in the plan. The facts established during the subsequent Senate probe pointed to Mr. Aquino’s series of decisions as ultimately causing the death of the men.
We could almost hear him say—“It was not my fault!”
In the days following the massacre, did he not put the blame on Napeñas who he said failed to coordinate with the Army for help? Did he not skip the arrival of the bodies to attend some car manufacturer’s inauguration? Did he not feign empathy with the men’s grieving families by saying he knew how they felt because he had lost his father, and did he not fail, spectacularly?
Did he not believe a so-called peace pact with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front was worth saving at all costs?
And then we remember—this was a president who could do no wrong in his own eyes.
Now that he is out of office, we no longer have to suffer his monologues regarding some straight and narrow path. As an ordinary citizen, Mr. Aquino will, just like any citizen, have the opportunity to argue his case, through hard facts and not motherhood statements.
Let us see where his defense would take him. “It’s not my fault” will just not cut it, because he is no longer president, and truth and justice do have a way of catching up with us and putting us in our rightful place.