The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas said Sunday it “is the duty of the state to give you the full support, equipment and training and not to send you into hopeless operations.”
He told demoralized members of the PNP Special Action Force (SAF) at their headquarters he did not know in advance of plans for an anti-terror raid that triggered a bloodbath in which 44 police commandos were killed.
Roxas said he had no foreknowledge of the January 25 operation.
The biggest single-day loss by government forces in decades shocked and enraged the nation and imperiled a peace pact with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
“They did not tell me about this,” he told the SAF members, his voice somber and breaking. “I’m not saying I would have known better but I also can’t help feeling I was not given a chance to ensure there was better coordination.”
The SAF commandos were gunned down while on a mission to capture or kill Malaysian bomb-maker Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, a leading member of the Jemaah Islamiyah group that staged the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia.
Authorities have claimed Marwan was killed, while another terrorist targeted in the mission veiled in secrecy escaped.
The commandos were later ambushed by Muslim armed groups including fighters of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the MILF, which signed a peace agreement with the government last March.
The MILF said the raid should have been coordinated with them under the terms of the ceasefire.
“Your job is tough and dangerous. It is the duty of the state to give you the full support, equipment and training and not to send you into hopeless operations,” an apologetic Roxas said.
Roxas, President Aquino’s losing running mate in the 2010 presidential elections, told the commandos to await the result of an investigation before jumping to conclusions.
Mr. Aquino had previously said he was informed by top police of the operation.
“We again appeal to everyone to give peace a chance,” his spokesman Herminio Coloma said in a radio address. “Let us unite under this principle while seeking justice and accountability over what happened… last week.”
Coloma said a final peace agreement would require the 12,000-strong MILF to disarm in exchange for control over an autonomous region in Mindanao.
But public anger threatens to derail efforts to pass legislation needed to implement the peace accord before Mr. Aquino steps down in 2016.
The main gate of the national police headquarters has become an unofficial memorial bedecked with flowers, candles and other tokens left by mourners.
About 200 military veterans and serving soldiers drove up on motorcycles on Sunday, offering prayers and lighting candles.