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He’s lucky he wasn’t thrown out in a snap.
“Resigned Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Alan Purisima has begun moving out from the White House in Camp Crame. Even Purisima’s poster at the briefing area of the PNP Press Corps Office in Crame has been removed,” reports Thom Andrade on InterAksyon.com.
The White House is the official quarters for the PNP chief.
PNP spokesman Chief Superintendent Generoso Cerbo Jr. told reporters, “I have coordinated with the Headquarters Support Service and they informed me that he had started to move out from the White House last Sunday.”
The report noted: “Although suspended in December over graft charges, Purisima continued to stay at the White House, where a number of meetings were held to plan the Special Action Force (SAF) mission to bag Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias ‘Marwan.'”
The report pointed out that “suspicions about Purisima’s direct role in the mission, as well as that of President Benigno Aquino III, were aroused following confirmation that Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II and acting PNP chief Leonardo Espina were kept in the dark about the January 25 Mamasapano mission that 44 SAF commandos and 18 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters dead.”
Purisima resigned a few days after the mission.
In any case, Cerbo said Purisima “will be given at least a month to move out from the White House, which will then remain vacant until the next PNP chief moves in.”
Ironically, as the report indicated, “the PHP25-million renovation of the official residence is among the alleged anomalies Purisima is accused of.”
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 are currently doing probes on the Mamsapano encounter to determine what went wrong, as the incident threatens the Bangsamoro peace deal.
Photo: News clip
