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What made him change his mind?
“Soon after his office released a statement taking issue with the Senate finding President Benigno Aquino III ‘ultimately responsible’ for the January 25 Mamasapano incident, Senator Bam Aquino issued another statement saying he did agree with this conclusion,” reports Ernie Reyes on InterAksyon.com.
Senator Aquino’s original statement explained why he signed, “with reservations,” the draft report of the Senate inquiry into the disastrous Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) mission. Read the passages from STATEMENT NO. 1 below:
“Primarily, these include conclusions made regarding the peace process, the actions of the Government Peace Panel, regarding the Bangsamoro Basic Law in general and the President’s ultimate responsibility on the incident which he himself admitted to in a previous public address last month.”
However, after a report on the first statement came out, Senator Aquino’s office issued a second, “revised and updated” statement. Read the passages from STATEMENT NO. 2 below:
“Primarily, these include conclusions made regarding the peace process, the actions of the Government Peace Panel and regarding the Bangsamoro Basic Law in general.”
So, what’s his cousin going to say about the senator’s revised statement?
The encounter in Mamasapano, Maguindanao on Jan 25 left 44 members of the elite Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Action Force (SAF) dead. The PNP-SAF troopers had been out to capture Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias “Marwan” and Filipino bomb maker Abdul Basit Usman. Both men had bounties on their heads placed by the U.S. government: US$5 million for Marwan and US$1 million for Usman.
The operation turned bloody when members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said they had to fight back because the PNP-SAF had breached their territory. They alleged that they had not been informed about the operation to get Marwan and Usman. The hostile encounter lasted 11 hours. The MILF lost 18 of their fighters.
Both the government and the MILF have done probes on the Mamasapano encounter to determine what went wrong, as the incident threatens the Bangsamoro peace deal. It has since been revealed that the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and even some armed civilians were also involved in the clash.
Photo: Press release
