The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The House inquiry into the Mamasapano massacre resumes tomorrow (Tuesday), with militant lawmakers out to crack the riddle of President Aquino’s involvement in Operation Exodus, amid charges his officials have been covering up his role at the height of the fighting between police commandos and Muslim rebels and its tragic aftermath.
The Senate Committee on Public Order, meanwhile, meets in executive session today to hear sensitive the testimonies of Army and police generals.
Though Mr. Aquino admitted at a Jan. 30 dialogue with SAF officers that he had information on the shooting of the terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, in the morning of Jan. 25, his security officials lapsed into mass amnesia facing the Senate Committee on Public Order last week. The President said: “Simula pa noong Linggo, umaga pa lang, sinabihan na ako ng naging resulta nitong kay Marwan. Tapos habang sinisayat namin ang pagbobomba sa Zamboanga, dumarating ang mga report,” (starting from Sunday morning, I was already told about the result of the operation against Marwan. Afterwards, while we were assessing the bombing in Zamboanga, other reports came.)
It was the most traumatic day for the Special Action Force, suffering its biggest single-day loss in pursuit of a terrorist linked to al-Qaeda, and with a $5-million bounty on his head. Yet no one, from Interior Secretary Mar Roxas to Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin to Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang, could accurately recall the time they received notice of the rout in progress and when they informed the Commander-in-Chief. The reason: they did not see any urgency. Resigned PNP Director-General Alan Purisima, when asked the same question, said he needed clearance first from the President.
At around 11 a.m., Roxas said there was a report of “something happening in Maguindanao, but it was not clear.” Sen. Nancy Binay asked, “So you told the President there was something not clear that was happening in Mamasapano?”
“Something like that,” Roxas replied. “There were many things happening. Maybe I should reconstruct the text messages that were the basis of what happened.” Asked what was the President’s response, Roxas said he could not remember.
This was typical of the officials’ answers. They finally informed the President at around 5 p.m., by which hour the SAF blocking force, save for a lone survivor, had been annihilated in a riverside cornfield where they ran out of ammunition. No one could recall what the President’s reaction was to the tragedy—or if he ever ordered a rescue effort for the beleaguered commandos.
So far, in his two nationally televised addresses, the President has evaded telling the whole story. There is a perceived cover-up by his security officials, who joined him in Zamboanga City on that fateful day, ostensibly to inspect the damage by a car bomb explosion on Jan. 23 that killed two persons and wounded 52 others.
Poe summed up her frustration, telling the AFP chief of staff, “It seems difficult to believe that from morning to night, you were with the President in Zamboanga and you did not mention that. You were beside the President and he is your Commander in Chief.”
TMM