{"id":45808,"date":"2015-03-27T03:08:03","date_gmt":"2015-03-26T19:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=45808"},"modified":"2015-03-27T03:08:03","modified_gmt":"2015-03-26T19:08:03","slug":"aquino-asks-for-understanding-on-mamasapano-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/03\/27\/aquino-asks-for-understanding-on-mamasapano-incident\/","title":{"rendered":"Aquino asks for understanding on Mamasapano incident"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"President<\/a>
President Benigno Aquino III at the 36th PNPA commencement ceremony at Silang, Cavite (Malaca\u00f1ang Photo Bureau)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2014 With abiding humility, President Benigno Aquino III on Thursday asked for understanding from the Filipino people and from the families of the 44 Special Action Force (SAF) troopers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) killed in the Mamasapano incident.<\/p>\n

President Aquino made this appeal during the 36th Philippine National Police Academy (PNPA) Commencement Exercises for Lakandula Class of 2015 at Camp General Mariano N. Castaneda in Silang, Cavite.<\/p>\n

\u201dTo every Filipino who has felt failure or has been hurt because of the events related to this operation: It is with the abiding humility that I ask for your deepest understanding,\u201d the President said in his speech.<\/p>\n

\u201dI am aware of this: that no words will suffice to explain the deaths of our brave policemen. A report or a speech can never reflect the entirety of what is felt by a parent who lost a good child. All I can do, after saying all that must be said, and after doing all that must be done, is to ask for your deep understanding,\u201d the President he added.<\/p>\n

After explaining his side on the bloody encounter in three different occasions, the President reiterated to the 246 new graduates of the PNPA that he was responsible for the unfortunate incident that also claimed the lives of 17 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and three civilians.<\/p>\n

\u201dToday, I say this once more: As President, I am fully responsible for any result\u2014any triumph, any suffering, and any tragedy\u2014that may be borne of our desire for lasting security and peace,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The President promised to go after those responsible in the Mamasapano incident and will continue to serve the 100 million Filipino people in the remaining 459 days of his administration.<\/p>\n

\u201dI will continue to do what is right and just. I will continue to exert every effort to serve all of you and to faithfully fulfill my sworn mandate. I am not saying that I am like God, who knows everything, but I have a duty to right whatever wrong I discover. And I assure you: We respect due process. Those responsible will be held to account,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The President said he was saddened that despite his efforts to bring comfort to the victims of the Mamasapano tragedy, people continued to judge him as insensitive and without compassion.<\/p>\n

\u201dMy intention was to help them heal. I wanted to have clear answers should I be asked, \u201cWhat happened? Why did they die? What will happen to us now?\u201d If my response was \u201cI do not know,\u201d how could I help hasten the healing?,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n

The President explained again that he received information about the death of SAF 44 late in the afternoon of January 25.<\/p>\n

\u201dif I had known this immediately, do you think I would have missed the chance to help our men? But you know what happened. On the morning of January 25, there was no urgency in the text messages that were sent to me. From what was texted, it appeared to me as if the operation in Mamasapano had ended, or was coming to an end, because mechanized units and artillery were already providing assistance,\u201d President Aquino explained.<\/p>\n

\u201dWith God as my witness, I tell you the truth. But I am aware there are those who are close-minded, who will not listen regardless of what I say,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The President reiterated that has not be given correct information about the real situation when the 392-member SAF team carried out a mission to arrest two high-profile terrorists Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan and Basit Usman.<\/p>\n

\u201dRegardless of my anger for the disregard for the orders I gave, regardless of my regret for trusting people who concealed the truth from me, I can never erase the fact: 44 members of our police force are dead. And this happened under my term. Let me stress it: I will bear this basic truth with me to my grave,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n

President Aquino agreed with the reports of the PNP Board of Inquiry (BOI) and Senate that the lack of coordination between the PNP and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) led to the unfortunate end of the SAF 44.<\/p>\n

Unless the investigating teams both from Congress and PNP would ask for his side, President Aquino said \u201cthis is the last time I will speak on this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2014 With abiding humility, President Benigno Aquino III on Thursday asked for understanding from the Filipino people and from …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":45839,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,95,483],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-ph","category-politics","mauthors-jelly-f-musico","mauthors-philippines-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45808","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=45808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}