{"id":41247,"date":"2015-02-05T23:36:53","date_gmt":"2015-02-05T15:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=41247"},"modified":"2015-02-08T00:06:16","modified_gmt":"2015-02-07T16:06:16","slug":"purisimas-order-inform-espina-during-operation-not-beforehand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/02\/05\/purisimas-order-inform-espina-during-operation-not-beforehand\/","title":{"rendered":"Purisima\u2019s order: Inform Espina during operation, not beforehand"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Suspended<\/a>
Former PNP Chief Alan Purisima with President Benigno Simeon Aquino III (Rey Baniquet \/ Malaca\u00f1ang Photo Bureau)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA, Philippines \u2013 Sacked Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) Director Getulio Nape\u00f1as, asserted that they coordinated with the military in Oplan Wolverine, a disastrous operation targeted to arrest international terrorist Zulkifi bin Hir, alias \u201cMarwan,\u201d in Mamasapano town, Maguindanao province.<\/p>\n

However, PNP officer in charge Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina maintained that the military was not informed about the encounter which ended with a Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and Moro Islamic Liberation Font (MILF) guerillas clash killing 44 of the 392 police commandos involved.<\/p>\n

Nape\u00f1as stated that he directly reported to suspended PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima since the police operational procedures obliged a commander to inform his superior about a mission before or during the operation.<\/p>\n

Nape\u00f1as also admitted that it was Purisima\u2019s order to withhold informing Espina until the SAF operation was launched.<\/p>\n

\u201cPurisima told me to tell Deputy Director General Espina only when the operation was already going on,\u201d he said in a media briefing, adding that they were already there and the troops were already deployed when he informed Espina.<\/p>\n

Espina confirmed Nape\u00f1as\u2019 statement as he learned about the police operation through a text message at 5:30 am whereas the target was already killed at 4:00 am.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was informed during the encounter. I was made to understand they killed the target around 4:00 am. I received the information at 5:30 am,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Asked why they also did not inform Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas, who has supervision over the PNP, Nape\u00f1as said that he was not allowed to report directly to Roxas because Espina came first in the chain of command.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could not go directly to him because that would be a violation of the chain of command,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff General Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr. defended the military\u2019s action during the operation, explaining that they were not reinforced to fight the Moro guerillas but to extricate the trapped police commandos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went there to reinforce them but the reinforcements were there to extricate them, not to join the fight with the MILF and BIFF or whatever combat units they engaged,\u201d he said, citing the government\u2019s ceasefire agreement with the MILF.<\/p>\n

Some Filipinos claimed that the 44 commandos could have been spared had SAF coordinated with the military sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n

With report from Cyra Moraleda<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Philippines \u2013 Sacked Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) Director Getulio Nape\u00f1as, asserted that they coordinated with the military …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":26693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ph","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}