TWENTY Questions is a traditional parlor game that encourages deductive reasoning and creativity. In the game, one player is designated the answerer and chooses an object but does not reveal it to the others in the game. Players then take turns asking questions answerable by yes or no. If they cannot guess the object by the end of 20 questions, the answerer wins.
Given the many unanswered questions surrounding the Mamasapano debacle in which 44 police commandos were killed, it is hardly surprising that lawmakers have decided to pose their own set of 20 questions to President Benigno Aquino III, who, along with his good friend, resigned police chief Alan Purisima, was the only high-level official who knew about the covert operation before it went down the tubes.
Realizing, perhaps, that the President is unlikely to give a straight yes-or-no answer, they have framed many of their questions in an open-ended way. Like the original parlor game, however, the 20 questions for the President are designed to arrive at the truth by narrowing the field of inquiry with each succeeded question, until the well-guarded truth in Mr. Aquino’s mind is revealed.
Eight of the questions deal with the President’s buddy, Purisima, and why Mr. Aquino allowed him to participate in the active planning and execution of the covert operation when he knew that the police chief had already been suspended by the Office of the Ombudsman on corruption charges. Did the President (yes or no) knowingly violate the Ombudsman’s suspension order?
Purisima’s involvement raises many other questions.
Why, for example, did the President lie about Purisima’s role on Jan. 25? In a question-and-answer session that day, the President claimed his good friend was involved only until he was suspended in December 2014. Subsequent testimony before the Senate and even the President’s own statements later reveal this to have been a bald-faced lie.
Why too, if the President wanted the mission commander to coordinate with the Armed Forces, had he simply not picked up the phone and called AFP chief Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang or brought PNP OIC Leonardo Espina into the mission briefings?
The lawmakers also want to know if the President relied purely on text messages for his information, or had he attempted to call anybody, including Purisima, to get a clearer picture of what was happening in Mamasapano. If he did not, why not?
Why, the lawmakers wanted to know, was there no air support for the Mamasapano operation? Was the President aware that two helicopters and two planes that could have been used to provide the police commandos with air support were deployed that day in Zamboanga to protect him? Did the President order the Army to stand down and not come to the aid of the beleaguered police commandos in view of the ongoing peace talks with the Muslim rebels?
The lawmakers from the leftist Makabayan bloc also wanted to know what the role of the United States was in the operation and what the President’s legal basis for getting them involved was.
The lawmakers had wanted the President to answer the questions in person at a hearing before the House, but that is unlikely to happen, given the spirited blocking defense that Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and the President’s other lackeys in Congress have mounted to protect him.
But those questions will not go away simply because House leaders refuse to call in the President, who has painted himself into a corner with his lies. And outraged Filipinos won’t stop at 20 questions to get at the truth that they know he is hiding from them.