EDITORIAL - Aquino spooked by ghosts of SAF 44

President Aquino, in yet another belated face-to-face meeting with members of the Philippine National Police Special Action Force, said he did not send the SAF on a suicide mission last January 25. In that mission, meant to capture or neutralize two wanted international terrorists, 44 SAF commandos were massacred by the MILF and the BIFF in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

But of course he did not send the SAF on a suicide mission. Why Aquino would even say that is a cause for wonderment. Nobody is accusing Aquino of sending the SAF on a suicide mission. All the facts that have emerged so far in the aftermath of that mission, and all the comments made based on such facts, have never suggested for one moment that Aquino sent the SAF to Mamasapano to be slaughtered. Nobody is even blaming Aquino for the incident.

What the entire Filipino nation is asking of Aquino is simply to take responsibility for the tragedy, not only because he is the commander-in-chief, but more importantly because he is the father of the nation. A nation that continues to bleed from the incident needs a strong leader to own up responsibility in order to put closure to the case and move on.

But even to this day, Aquino continues to shirk on that responsibility. Despite the fact that he has been in on the planning and knew exactly when the mission was to take off, as is naturally expected since he is the president and commander-in-chief, Aquino continues to pin the blame on his subordinate co-planners – Alan Purisima who has since resigned as PNP chief, and Getulio Napeñas, who he has relieved as SAF chief.

Aquino did not send the SAF on a suicide mission. He sent them on a mission. At the time he gave the go-signal for the mission to proceed, not one of them thought the mission would end very badly. Even Aquino himself would have aborted the mission if he thought it was to end the way it did. But no. None of the three co-plotters thought negatively. And rightly so. You have no business planning anything in the first place if you are a negative and pessimistic person.

In fact the mission was supposed to hit two birds with one stone – capture or neutralize the terrorists, and provide the golden parachute for Aquino's friend Purisima who at the time was on a nosedive from serious allegations of corruption. Aquino had to take a personal interest in the Purisima corruption case because it created very real doubts about his own much-ballyhooed campaign against corruption. Saving Purisima is like saving his own neck.

But Aquino had a problem. The mission was deep inside MILF territory and he was talking peace with the MILF. It would look real awkward getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. That is why he refuses to own responsibility for the raid and would rather abandon Purisima and Napeñas to fry. If he's now getting incoherent, mumbling about suicide missions, it must be because he is getting spooked by the ghosts of the SAF 44, whose deaths he still refuses to take responsibility for.