If PNoy did not trust Mar, why should we?

The Senate is reportedly set to reopen its probe of the massacre at Mamasapano where 44 brave Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Action Forces men perished. 

If that plan pushes through, the campaign team of presidential aspirant and former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas may be in for more headaches.

This early, the news of the planned reopening of the probe is being interpreted as a looming setback for the presidency of Pnoy.

The President is set to leave the highest office of the land in less than six months.

Resurrecting the ghosts of Mamasapano and reviving the questions that were left unanswered in the initial probe will surely damage the President’s bid to leave behind a happier set of memories of his time in office.

That bid may be facing a real challenge. In the reopening of the Senate investigation, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile is set to take center stage. Everyone knows that this Senate old hand is adept at asking the right questions – the ones that cut through the muddle and hits at the very core of the issue.

If it is the vintage Enrile that shows up in the reopened probe, Pnoy’s legacy managers should be worried.

The same is true for the cabal that plans and runs the campaign of Palace bet in the 2016 presidential elections.

We surmise that Enrile is set to hold the President accountable for the death of the SAF 44.

The veteran lawmaker has reportedly said that he has in his hands new information. It may be safe to presume that the “new information” could remove any and all doubts that the President had made certain decisions that eventually led to the tragic ending of that misadventure at Mamasapano.

It is unlikely that Enrile will target Roxas in the reopened probe.

It is likely, however, that this question will once again be asked: why was Roxas, who was then secretary of the interior and local government, kept in the dark concerning the planned operations to haul in an international terrorist?

Why was he kept out of the loop?

Why did the President give clear instructions that Roxas was not to be informed about the launching of the operations?

Why did the President rely on then suspended PNP chief Alan Purisima rather than on the man in his Cabinet who is supposed to be overseeing police operations?

Why did the President trust the suspended PNP chief more than his local governments secretary?

Is it true that the President knew about Purisima’s plan to stage a spectacular comeback to his former post by bagging international terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, the so-called “Osama bin Laden of Asia,” while serving his six-month preventive suspension by the Office of the Ombudsman for allegations of graft and corruption?

How much trust did Roxas really enjoy from the President when he was in the Cabinet?

These are important questions. They are relevant to the decision voters will make in the 2016 elections.

Here’s why: if Pnoy did not exhibit unqualified trust in Roxas in connection with that botched operation, how can he now tell voters to entrust the future of this country in the hands of his former local governments secretary?

How can Pnoy tell us to trust and give our votes to a man whom he opted to keep out of the loop during one of the most important moments of his presidency?

What is it in Roxas that made him unqualified for that same level of trust that Pnoy reposed in a suspended PNP chief?

The Mamasapano case was a defining moment in the Pnoy presidency. It defined his person and character. It defined his leadership. It also revealed that the outgoing President’s trust is difficult to earn and is reserved for a select few.

Based on what was revealed in the aftermath of that incident, it appears that Roxas did not belong to that select few.

If there is one thing the public must be told, it is the reason for the President’s decision not to show that unqualified trust in Roxas during that defining moment of his presidency.

We must be told. We need to know.

The act of voting is an act of vesting unqualified trust in a person.

If the President did not vest that kind of trust in Roxas, why should we?