JPE on SAF 44: Was Noy a Hamlet or Nero?

MANILA, Philippines – Among the reasons cited for the reopening of the Mamasapano incident is to determine what President Aquino was doing when the fighting broke out.

“What was the President doing? Was he like Hamlet or Nero playing the fiddle?” Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile remarked during an interview aired yesterday over dwIZ.

Enrile, who was in detention when the Senate committee on public order headed by Sen. Grace Poe conducted its inquiry into the Mamasapano incident last year, said this was one issue that was not sufficiently tackled during those hearings.

He said his questioning would be confined to the key players of the incident.

Enrile stressed he intends to reveal to the public what the President was doing between Jan. 25 to 27 last year or during the fighting between the Special Action Force police commandos and Muslim rebels in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

Almost 400 police commandos swooped down on a remote village of Mamasapano before dawn in the operation to capture Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, and local confederate Basit Usman on Jan. 25.

But after killing Marwan, the SAF commandos were ambushed by heavily armed Muslim rebels and villagers.

A total of 44 policemen were killed and 12 others were wounded in the attack. Eighteen rebels and five civilians died.

Operation Plan: Exodus went haywire after operatives supposedly failed to coordinate properly with the military as then SAF commander Chief Supt. Getulio Napeñas’ plea for reinforcement was apparently ignored by his military counterparts.

President Aquino, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, has repeatedly refused to admit command responsibility for the killing and instead put the blame on Napeñas.

The Senate has set the reopening of the Mamasapano inquiry on Jan. 27.

Enrile said he found it strange that the President would leave for Zamboanga on Jan. 25 when it was the birthday of his mother, the late President Corazon Aquino.

“I find it very suspicious that he left the celebration to go to Zamboanga to check on the bombing that happened weeks before. That was over already,” Enrile said.

“There must have been an impelling reason why he went there and I suspect that he used the bombing incident to cover up the true purpose of his visit. All of this will come out during my questioning,” he added.

In his statements last year, the President said that he was in Zamboanga out of concern for the safety of residents after the Jan. 23, 2015 car explosion that resulted in the killing of one person and injuries to 48 others.

“Didn’t the President say that the truth will make us free? I agree with him… so I will try to bring the truth out during the hearing,” Enrile said.

A committee report was released by Poe after the conclusion of hearings last year but this was never taken up in plenary.