An outspoken ally of the administration is urging President Benigno
Aquino III to stop managing the news and lay down his accountability and
that of the United States in the Special Action Force (SAF) mission in
which 44 police commandos and 18 Moro rebels died.
Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello said the President’s meeting with 25 House
leaders on Monday was a “thinly orchestrated effort on the part of the
Palace to manage the flow of information about Mamasapano” aimed at
making resigned Philippine National Police Director General Alan
Purisima the “fall guy” in the Jan. 25 operation in Maguindanao
province.
The President told the House leaders led by Speaker Feliciano
Belmonte Jr. that he was lied to by Purisima, who was feeding him
information on the mission to arrest Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin
Hir, alias “Marwan,” and his deputy, Basit Usman.
Purisima was then more than a month into his six-month suspension imposed by the Ombudsman on corruption charges.
“The President is again attempting to avoid responsibility for the
raid and its bloody consequences by foisting the blame on Purisima. I do
not mean to imply that Purisima is guiltless. Indeed, had the President
not put Purisima in charge of the operation, blatantly defying the
Ombudsman’s suspension order, this tragic fiasco might never have
happened. Responsibility was shared, and it’s the President’s attempt
not to own up to his share that infuriates me,” Bello said.
Bello, who was not among the lawmakers in the select group, said the
President should have emulated US Presidents John F. Kennedy and Jimmy
Carter who took full responsibility for military fiascos under their
watch—Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba for Kennedy and the Desert One rescue
operation in Iran for Carter.
“Why can’t this President be presidential enough to do the same and
suffer the consequences, as Kennedy and Carter did? He really has to do
something drastic with his style of governance,” Bello said.
He said the House leaders should be careful lest they be accused of “acquiescing” to MalacaƱang’s news management.
With the public’s unslaked thirst for truth, Bello said the House
should proceed with its suspended hearings on the SAF mission so as not
to appear it was conniving with MalacaƱang on the perceived cover-up.
Bello criticized Senate President Franklin Drilon’s haste in shutting
the door on the Mamasapano probe even if the roles of the President and
the United States had not yet been clarified.
“Whenever the role of the US came up in the Senate and House
hearings, the witnesses either invoked national security or said they
would answer in an executive session. It is amazing that for the most
part, the senators acquiesced. Full public disclosure of the US role in
the botched raid is in the national interest.
Democracy suffers if more
and more things are hidden behind a veil of ‘national security,’” Bello
said.
He complimented the Inquirer for coming up with three facts about the Mamasapano mission:
US drones pinpointed Marwan’s hiding place, guided the Filipino
commandos to it, and provided real-time management by the SAF command
away from the battlefield.
American advisers were the ones who vetoed informing top officials of
the PNP, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front of the planned raid on the grounds that news of the
action would be leaked to Marwan.
The Americans vetoed the Philippine government’s plan of a fused team
of the Seaborne Unit and the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) and instead use
the US Navy Seals-trained Seaborne to seize the Malaysian terrorist
with the QRF limited to extraction duty.
“The full dimensions of the Americans’ involvement remain to be
unearthed but it is now clear to me that taking out Marwan was a US, not
a Philippine, priority, though, of course, Filipino officials had been
concerned with the Malaysian’s bomb-making activities,” Bello said.
Marwan carried a $6-million bounty on his head put up by the FBI.
Source: newsinfo.inquirer.net
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