ADMINISTRATION allies in the House of Representatives have abruptly shut down their investigation into the Mamasapano massacre, lending credence to fears that the Palace is covering up the true circumstances behind the death of 44 police commandos at the hands of rebels from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), with which the government is negotiating peace.
After a bogus show of legislative independence that lasted one chaotic and disgraceful hearing, administration congressmen suddenly parroted the Palace line on Monday, saying it was better to wait for the results of the investigation by a police board of inquiry.
Curiously, the indefinite suspension of the House investigation comes at a time when it has become all too apparent that the Special Action Force (SAF) commander, Getulio Napeñas, who was later sacked, could not have planned, approved and carried out an operation of such import and scale on his own, without the approval of a higher authority.
Moreover, because the acting chief of the Philippine National Police and the Interior Secretary were by all accounts kept out of the loop, that left only President Benigno Aquino III and his suspended police chief, Alan Purisima.
Testimony before the Senate and the House shows both officials attended mission briefings with Napeñas before the ill-fated Jan. 25 operation, even though Purisima was supposed to be serving his suspension at the time.
It was also the suspended police chief who “advised” Napeñas to keep acting police chief Leonardo Espina and Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II in the dark until the mission was well under way. Purisima also told the SAF chief that he would take care of informing the Armed Forces chief of staff about the operation.
Tellingly, when Purisima was asked during the lone hearing at the House if he informed the President about the debacle in Mamasapano that day, he begged off from answering the question, saying he needed to get the President’s permission first to divulge what was said.
Purisima was supposed to answer the lawmakers’ questions about what the President knew and what actions he took during the next hearing, but that has now been scrubbed, thanks to the efforts of Aquino’s allies in Congress who are clearly trying to shield him from the fallout of the Mamasapano mess that he himself created.
The whitewash will fool nobody, however.
Napeñas is now widely regarded as the fall guy taking the rap for the President.
A timeline pieced together from the testimony at the hearings shows that the President was in Zamboanga with his top military and security officials on Jan. 25 when the 44 police commandos were being slaughtered in Mamasapano. The fiction that the Palace wants the public to swallow is that his presence in Mindanao had nothing to do with the Mamasapano operation, and that he only learned of the deadly bloodbath 12 hours after the clash began. The suggestion is ludicrous.
The Palace insists that the President has been transparent about the secret Mamasapano operation, but the his actions belie this claim. After all, this President waited three full days before addressing the nation on the disastrous results of an operation for which he was ultimately responsible—surely a sign that he was hiding something. In his next public address, he blamed Napeñas and exonerated himself—without bothering to wait for the findings of the police board of inquiry.
We cannot help but wonder if the President would have been so reticent about his role if the covert Mamasapano operation had succeeded with minimal casualties. Tragically for the SAF 44, that didn’t happen—and now the cover-up is in full swing.
