President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday said he would no longer proceed with the creation of an “alternative commission” to probe the botched raid in Mamasapano, Maguindanao in January 2015, in which 44 police commandos were killed.
In a speech during the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s campaign to encourage large taxpayers to pay taxes, Duterte said he would instead wait for the results of the cases filed before the Ombudsman on the culpability of officials under the previous Aquino administration on the ill-fated encounter between police and Muslim rebels.
“I am not going ahead with the creation of a commission, because, apparently, the Ombudsman has said that it’s still pending before them. I do not want to have a multiple incongruity, especially if one is finding fights with the other. So I will wait,” the President said.
Duterte said actress and television host Kris Aquino, sister of former President Benigno “NoyNoy” Aquino III, has texted him, pleading “not to put his brother in jail.”
Duterte, however, reiterated he is not vindictive toward political enemies.
“‘Si Kris [Aquino] nag-text. Sabi, ‘Huwag mo namang ipakulong si Noynoy.’ [She said, ‘Please don’t send Noynoy to jail.] No Kris. I am not out to find faults. I just want to know the truth,” Duterte said.
“I’m not into the business of putting former officials into jail. I am not into the habit of sending to prison the guys from the other side of the political fence or whatever,” Duterte told Aquino’s sister via the BIR audience. “I just want to give the Filipino people the truth.”
Edwin Lacierda, the presidential spokesperson under Aquino, earlier denied Duterte’s claim the former President deliberately hid the truth about the ill-fated incident. He also downplayed Duterte’s decision to form a commission to revisit the “untold stories” during the Mamasapano clash two years ago.
Despite this, Duterte insisted Aquino should answer a question lingering in his mind.
“There are so many things that have to be answered. For me, my one, solitary question is: Why didn’t he used air assets to save the pinned-down soldiers? This only. I don’t have any interest there.”