{"id":61311,"date":"2015-09-15T17:48:42","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T09:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=61311"},"modified":"2015-09-16T14:01:05","modified_gmt":"2015-09-16T06:01:05","slug":"caucasian-soldier-one-of-the-casualties-in-mamasapano-siege","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/09\/15\/caucasian-soldier-one-of-the-casualties-in-mamasapano-siege\/","title":{"rendered":"Caucasian soldier one of the casualties in Mamasapano siege?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"An<\/a>
An unidentified Caucasian-looking soldier was one of the casualties in the Mamasapano seige in January 2015. (Screenshot from INQUIRER acquired video<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA — An 8-minute video of the aftermath of the Mamasapano siege from January has been making rounds online.<\/p>\n

The video showed one of the casualties who looked like a Caucasian male soldier. The people taking the video were speaking in their native dialect and in English, but referred to the Caucasian-looking man as “Buddy.”<\/p>\n

‘No Americans or foreigners in Mamasapano seige’<\/strong>
\nFormer Special Action Force (SAF) chief\u00a0Getulio Nape\u00f1as vehemently denied any and all alleged participation of foreigners in the Mamasapano operation, which killed international terrorist\u00a0Zulkifli bin Hir alias ‘Marwan’ and 63 others, including 44 SAF commandos.<\/p>\n

In an interview with INQUIRER radio, Nape\u00f1as said, “Unang-una-<\/em>-I will say it again–walang <\/em>foreigner or Americans na nag-participate or namatay sa<\/em> combat operation…\u00a0Isa-isa na winithdraw iyan galing sa<\/em> field at isa-isa na inautopsy \u2018yan ng<\/em> crime laboratory. It would be impossible na hindi nila malaman kung ano nga ba ang<\/em> nationality ng tao na namatay na 44.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

(First of all–I will say it again–no foreigner or Americans participated or died in the combat operation. They were individually extracted\u00a0from the field and separately autopsied by the crime laboratory. It would be impossible not to know the nationality of the 44 casualties.)<\/p>\n

The U.S. Embassy has also released statements in the past denying claims that American soldiers–one blue-eyed man and another African-American man–were killed in Mamasapano. According to\u00a0Nape\u00f1as, the Caucasian-looking man could be\u00a0PO2 Romeo Cempron of SAF.<\/p>\n

“Iyan \u2018yung lumabas na picture din noon, si PO2 Cempron…<\/em> Caucasian-looking na tao iyan. Inadmit na namin noon pa na may isang tao kami na<\/em> Caucasian-looking, si PO2 Cempron nga \u2018yun,<\/em>”\u00a0Nape\u00f1as said.<\/p>\n

(That’s the photo that appeared in the past. PO2 Cempron looked Caucasian. We’ve already admitted in the past that we have a soldier who looks Caucasian and that’s PO2 Cempron.)<\/p>\n

Nape\u00f1as also pointed out that the term “buddy” is used in the military to refer to one soldier’s assigned partner or “buddy” in a mission, or simply the term one uses to refer to their companion.<\/p>\n

For those who continue to spread rumors and claims of foreigners’ involvement in the Mamasapano seige in January 25, 2015,\u00a0Nape\u00f1as says, “Kung meron man \u2018yung mga tao na nagke-claim na Amerikano kung ano-anong nationality, ilabas na lang nila ang ebidensya–ang witness nila at ebidensya.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

(If there’s anyone claiming [that those who died were] American or whatever nationality, they should show the evidence–their witness and evidence.)<\/p>\n

DOJ\u00a0weighs in<\/strong>
\nAccording to Justice Secretary Leila De Lima,\u00a0the authenticity of the video should be established first.<\/p>\n

“Let’s take a look at that. If that video is authentic, next question is Caucasian ba talaga<\/em>?” De Lima said in an ABS-CBN report. “Mahirap gumawa ng kung ano-anong mga<\/em> conclusions, mga<\/em> speculations na ‘yan. ‘Yun ba talaga hitsurang puti, hitsurang<\/em> Caucasian? Pwede naman na Pilipino na mestizo,<\/em> it can be that.”<\/p>\n

(It’s hard to jump into conclusions or speculations. If you have fair skin, does that mean you look Caucasian? It could also be a Filipino mestizo, it can be that.)<\/p>\n

De Lima reiterated that foreign troops are not allowed to participate in military operations within the Philippines, but she also said that there’s no harm in investigating the matter to verify the authenticity of “information and leads.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA — An 8-minute video of the aftermath of the Mamasapano siege from January has been making rounds online. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news-ph","mauthors-ching-dee","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61311","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=61311"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61311\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}