{"id":43654,"date":"2015-02-26T23:00:33","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T15:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=43654"},"modified":"2015-02-27T02:08:35","modified_gmt":"2015-02-26T18:08:35","slug":"mamasapano-encounter-not-fault-of-aquino-escudero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/02\/26\/mamasapano-encounter-not-fault-of-aquino-escudero\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamasapano encounter not fault of Aquino \u2013 Escudero"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Senator<\/a>
Senator Francis ‘Chiz’ Escudero attends the senate hearing for the Mamasapano clash. Also in the picture, Senator Grace Poe. (Facebook photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2013 Senator Francis Escudero said on Thursday President Benigno S. Aquino III could not be held liable for the bloody Mamasapano encounter that killed 44 Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) men last month.<\/p>\n

Escudero said the President has been forthright about the Oplan Exodus aimed at arresting two high-profile terrorists Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, and Basit Usman.<\/p>\n

The senator said resigned PNP chief Alan Purisima played a key role in spoiling the operation for feeding wrong information to the Commander-in-Chief.<\/p>\n

\u201dHe really played a big role, not only in the wrong information he fed to the President based on what he understood from the message given by Gen. Rustico Guerrero, Western Mindanao Command chief, but also for not informing OIC-PNP chief Leonardo Espina and DILG Secretary Mar Roxas,\u201d Escudero said in the weekly Kapihan sa Senado media forum.<\/p>\n

Citing a provision in the Constitution, Escudero said the President did not violate any law and that calls for the Chief Executive’s resignation following the deadly clash between the SAF men and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and other armed groups in Maguindanao were unfounded.<\/p>\n

“The President, under the Constitution, is immune from suit and can only be held liable, if at all, for what he did or did not do in the Mamasapano operation in an impeachment proceeding,” said Escudero, who also chairs the Senate Committee on Finance.<\/p>\n

\u201dFor me, the only mistake that the President did was when he gave Purisima space to act at any capacity in the operation (despite his suspension). But then again, we have the benefit of hindsight,\u201d Escudero explained.<\/p>\n

In one of the Senate hearings, former SAF commander Director Getulio Nape\u0148as Jr. admitted that Purisima told him not to tell Roxas and Espina of the special mission to arrest two wanted international terrorists in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.<\/p>\n

Escudero also scored Nape\u0148as for listening to Purisima despite the latter\u2019s suspension.<\/p>\n

\u201dGeneral Espina should know that a suspended official can no longer give order,\u201d Escudero said.<\/p>\n

He said that if the former SAF commander was ambivalent and scared of Purisima, Nape\u0148as should have been more scared of what his men were about to face in the field.<\/p>\n

\u201dHe should have considered first the situation of his men who will be endangered if there will be no coordination by simply following Purisima\u2019s advice,\u201d Escudero said.<\/p>\n

According to Escudero, the Senate should immediately come out with its committee report on the Mamasapano investigation, simultaneous with the reports from the Board of Inquiry and other agencies that conducted investigations into the deadly clash.<\/p>\n

At the same time, Escudero urged the President to come out in public once investigative reports have been released to answer, address and explain these results to the people waiting for answers, especially the families left behind by the 44 elite commandos who were killed in the Mamasapano mission.<\/p>\n

\u201dIf necessary to address the public for the third, fourth time, he should do it so that the people will understand his relation to the reports and on what to do moving forward learning from past mistakes of the Mamasapano incident,\u201d Escuero said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 Senator Francis Escudero said on Thursday President Benigno S. Aquino III could not be held liable for the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":41738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,95,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ph","category-politics","mauthors-philippines-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43654","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=43654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}