JOEL M. SY EGCO SENIOR REPORTER
After fiercely defending former Philippine National Police (PNP) Alan Purisima for his involvement in the operation to capture two terrorists hiding in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, Malacanang made a drastic turnaround on Monday by saying the killing of dozens of Special Action Force (SAF) commandos was his fault.
Heaping the blame on the resigned former police chief, Palace spokesman Edwin Lacierda said President Benigno Aquino 3rd gave crucial instructions that, if followed, could have saved the lives of the 44 elite police commandos.
“Instructions were given to General Purisima to coordinate. Those instructions were not carried out but there were instructions to coordinate with the responsible government functions, government units. There were instructions to coordinate with the Army. There were instructions to coordinate with General [Leonardo] Espina. Those were instructions, very clear instructions coming from the President.
Unfortunately, those instructions were not carried out or were not carried out time on target,” he told a news briefing.
Lacierda said Purisima and suspended SAF commander Getulio Napeñas committed blunders and “operational lapses.”
“The President deals [at] the policy level. What is the policy [level] on that {Mamasapano operation]? We fight terrorism. We promote peace. We make sure that we alleviate poverty. These are the [objectives at the] policy level and at that level, the President always harps on the policy. And I think there is nothing irregular [about it],” he explained.
“On the operational level, however, we’ve seen lapses in the operation and for that particular instance, there is the BOI [Board of Inquiry] and the Senate to go through the details of the operation itself,” he added.
Lacierda noted Purisima’s “fault” was his failure to carry out the instructions of the President.
“Those instructions were not carried out. That would be the subject of the report of the BOI as to why, for instance, General Napeñas did not do ‘time on target’ coordination. These are operational issues on the ground, which as we saw [in] the text exchange between the President and General Purisima, he [Aquino] was only given information, bits of information on the 26th of January,” the Palace spokesman said.
Lacierda was referring to the exchange of text messages between Aquino and Purisima and which messages were made public last week.
The same text messages indicated that Purisima gave the President inaccurate details on the execution of Oplan Exodus that was aimed at neutralizing Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan and Abdul Basit Usman, two high-value targets wanted for terrorism.
During the briefing, the Palace official was obviously shielding Aquino, who came under stinging criticisms for allowing Purisima, his long-time friend, to lead the top-secret operation even if he had been suspended by the Sandiganbayan for graft.
Lacierda explained that “the President does not involve himself in the operation of neutralizing a terrorist.”
“We were informed, for instance, on the 26th of January during the first briefing of General Napeñas that there was ‘time on target’ coordination. When we were looking at it and, in fact, maybe some of you have seen the briefing of that particular day–the first response of General Napeñas [when asked ‘Was there time on target?’] was ‘between three [and] four,” the Palace spokesman said.
“It turned out the first coordination that was given by General Napeñas to General [Eduardo] Pangilinan was 5:06 a.m. At that point, already we sensed that there was something not proper there because our understanding, at the very least, is that there should be coordination prior to hitting the target. Unfortunately, the first coordination was at 5:06 after Mr. Marwan was neutralized, so there was already a firefight when Pangilinan was informed by General Napeñas,” Lacierda added.