{"id":68421,"date":"2016-01-08T04:00:01","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T09:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=68421"},"modified":"2016-01-08T04:00:01","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T09:00:01","slug":"president-aquino-cites-politics-in-reopening-of-senate-inquiry-into-mamasapano-incident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/01\/08\/president-aquino-cites-politics-in-reopening-of-senate-inquiry-into-mamasapano-incident\/","title":{"rendered":"President Aquino cites \u2018politics\u2019 in reopening of Senate inquiry into Mamasapano incident"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"(Photo<\/a>
(Photo by Joseph Vidal\/ Malaca\u00f1ang Photo Bureau<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u2014President Benigno Aquino on Friday said politics played a major role in the reopening of the Senate inquiry into the Mamasapano incident that killed 44 Special Action Force (SAF) troopers almost a year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think with all these occurrences, I can see the big role of politics,\u201d President Aquino said in a media interview after the inauguration of 300-megawatt Davao Baseload Power Plant in Toril, Davao City.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps, we should not forget who pushed for it, maybe we can understand, most likely ill feelings towards my administration,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The President did not name names but it was Senate minority leader Juan Ponce Enrile who requested for the reopening of the Mamasapano probe.<\/p>\n

Enrile was in detention when the Senate conducted five hearings on the brutal killing of the 44 SAF troopers in an encounter with Moro rebels belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and private armed groups on January 25 last year in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.<\/p>\n

The 91-year-old Enrile, a close ally of opposition presidential aspirant Vice President Jejomar Binay, is one of the three incumbent senators facing plunder charges for allegedly misusing hundreds of millions of their priority development assistance fund (PDAF) or pork barrel.<\/p>\n

Enrile got temporary freedom last August after the Supreme Court (SC) granted his request for bail while fellow opposition Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon \u2018Bong\u2019 Revilla Jr. remain in detention at Camp Crame.<\/p>\n

Senator Grace Poe, chairperson of the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drug and an independent presidential candidate, agreed to the request of Enrile.<\/p>\n

\u201dWell, we all know that the campaign period is coming soon. Among our opponents, they see that this has been the greatest burden I have had since I took office. Perhaps, they are trying to take this opportunity,\u201d the President said.<\/p>\n

\u201dOf course, as President and father of the nation, I can\u2019t let emotions take over here. \u2026You know, January 25 is my mother\u2019s birthday, the first anniversary of the Mamasapano incident, it\u2019s like they are insisting that you must suffer here. Now, there is a saying, we can see it in the teachings of the church that I belong to, in the Bible, \u2018the truth shall set us all free\u2019,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

President Aquino, however, believes that the reopening of the Mamasapano incident would be a good opportunity to come up with a complete picture of what really happened in the Mamasapano encounter.<\/p>\n

Poe set the reinvestigation of the Mamasapano incident on January 25, one year after the bloody encounter that took place while the SAF team was serving warrant of arrest against international terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias \u2018Marwan\u2019 who was killed in the operation. (PNA)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u2014President Benigno Aquino on Friday said politics played a major role in the reopening of the Senate inquiry into the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":66380,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-68421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-original","mauthors-jelly-f-musico","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68421","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}