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Is he taking all the the blame for the bloodbath?
“Police Director Getulio Napeñas — who was relieved from his position as chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Action Force (SAF) — admitted on Tuesday, January 27, that he did not coordinate with the military before launching Oplan Wolverine, the disastrous operation to get international terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias ‘Marwan,'” reports Arlyn de la Cruz in Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Over 40 PNP-SAF elite cops were killed in the Mamasapano clash.
Napeñas explained: “It was a command decision and we had been working on it for a long time and as a commander, I decided that it was best not to inform other units in the police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines about the plan of initiating the actual assault. It was a judgment call and I take full responsibility.”
The report noted: “Napeñas compared the secrecy about Oplan Wolverine to Operation Neptune Spear, the covert US Navy Seals operation that cornered al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in March 2011.”
He added, “Why, was the Pakistani government informed about the operation that got Bin Laden? No, right? This is the same. We received information that required action and it was our duty to take action. It’s inherent to our job as law enforcers and as one command.”
Napeñas clarified that he did make a call to one of his superiors, Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina, the PNP officer in charge. The report saud that Napeñas “initially informed Espina about the Mamasapano operation through a text message at 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, January 25.” By that time, however, the clash had already broken out.
According to the report, Napeñas said he “could not go directly and report to Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who has supervision over the PNP, because Espina came first in the chain of command.”
Napeñas also revealed that “the secrecy about the operation was deliberate and recommended by intelligence operatives on the ground.” So, he pointed out, “not informing the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was part of the whole plan.”
Moreover, Napeñas explained that he was fully aware that “Mamasapano was controlled by the MILF, which has three command bases there—the 106th, 105th, and 118th.”
However, Napeñas said ” the intelligence information received by the SAF placed Marwan right there.” He stated, “We worked hard on this and we couldn’t allow our work to go to waste by informing the MILF. We don’t trust the MILF.”
Photo: PNP
