Originally Posted by
networkguy
back to topic ta hehehe
- - - Updated - - -
So the people may know...
Belinda Olivares-Cunanan:
Before President Aquino goes nationwide TV at 6 pm. today, to defend the tragic death of at least 44 members of the elite Special Action Force of the PNP, and wounding of 12 others PNP troopers, let me summarize the points in today's Manila Standard Today (MST), titled "Purisima Planned it all," excellently written by MST's ace reportorial team, namely Christine Herrera, Francisco Tuyay and Rio Araja. Their story is subtitled, "Aquino let suspended PNP Chief run show."
According to Herrera et al, P-Noy assigned this "fatal covert operation" to suspended PNP Chief Alan Purisima without the knowledge of Interior Sec. Mar Roxas and acting PNP Chief Gerardo Espina. The MST story is based on a conversation of the ace reporters with an unnamed police general, who asserted that the operation was "a tragedy in the making." When the news broke out about the massacre in Masasampano, Roxas was quoted as fuming that he didn't know about it---which is interesting given that he was photographed by Zambo City Mayor Lobregat as also being in Zambo City with P-Noy prior to the SAP team's jump-off for Maguindanao. P-Noy presumably awaited in Zambo the glorious return of the elite police force with the Malaysian bomb expert answering to the alias Marwan, on whose head the US govt. had placed a bounty of $5 million, plus $1 for his sidekick Usman.
But all that time Roxas was apparently left in the dark, for in the MST story the unnamed general quotes him as angrily reacting at a hastily called command conference after news broke out about the massacre. Apparently no one knew of the SAF secret operation except P-Noy, Purisima, who was based at the White House in Crame and to whom the ground PNP forces reported directly, and Executive Secretary Ochoa.
There's a lot of speculation that the huge bounty was the reason for the secrecy even among the police forces, but that is now beside the point. The significant fact is that the President fully authorized Purisima to carry out this operation with his most trusted and handpicked men. MST said that apparently P-Noy was confident that the successful operation would give him lots of brownie points with the US government. But now, in the light of the massacre President Aquino should take full responsibility.
The MST said that P-Noy, thinking of the worldwide attention if the world's most wanted terrorist was captured by his administration, gave Purisima the go-signal to operate 'incognito' and ordered Ochoa to give him all the resoruces and ammo the SAF needed.
So what went wrong? The MST story by Herrera et al pointed to the unnamed general's opinion that "it was the MILF that violated the (existing) ceasefire." He admitted that "there was no way we could coordinate with the MILF when the terrorists we were after were in their territory," that "We were there only to serve warrants for the arrest of Marwan and Usman" and that "there was no intention to engage in a firefight with the MILF," though they could expect exchange with the BIFF since there's no cease fire with this breakaway group of the MILF.
As the MST story narrated, when firefight opened up from the MILF the SAF people called for back-up and artillery from the Army, whose closest unit was the 4th Infantry Division, but the latter felt hamstrung by the cease-fire agreement with the MILF, and at one point, said Herrera et al, the Army even thought the call was a crank call as they knew of no operation whatsoever in the area. The tragedy was that that real SOS call went the circuitous way: from Mamasapano to Crame to Zambo where the President ordered Executive Secretary Ochoa to call the Army for an "extraction team." As the MST narrates the unnamed general speaking, it took several hours of convincing the higher-ups that our ranks were already being slaughtered."
After the slaughter PNP Chief Gerardo Espino sacked SAF Chief Getulio Napenas and announced that Deputy Chief Nli Talinam would be SAF-officer-in-charge. The MST said Secretary Mar Roxas has called for a seven-member Board of Inquiry to get to the bottom of things, but will the truth really surface? PNP sources of the MST were quoted as critical of Roxas' assertion that the tragic clash last Sunday was a "mis-encounter,"because the firefight went on for hours and some shots showed bullet wounds at the troopers' backs, meaning, they were fighting at close quarters,
The MST source also disputes Roxas' assertion that the Mamasapano operation was a "legitimate police operation" when the SAF was attacked by the MILF and its breakaway group, the BIFF, and "not because of the US FBI's $5 million and $1 million bounty for the two wanted criminals (at P44 to a dollar that 6 million bounty would run up to more than a quarter of a billion pesos).
So, was it pera-pera lang---greed, hindi nagkasundo sa partihan, as some citizens are asserting in social media? Or absent the mercenary element, just incompetence and amateurish handling at its inimitable and incomparable best? Or a combination of both? Whatever it is, unfortunately, many many precious lives were lost. President Noynoy Aquino as Commander-in-Chief has a lot to explain this evening to the nation and the Filipino people.
Dili man katabang ang ARMY kay gi ingnan man sila og STAND DOWN ni PANOT.
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