Sacked Special Action Force Chief Director Getulio Napeñas has openly declared that he did not fool Pres. Benigno Aquino III when the latter said in a presscon that he was "fooled" by Napeñas. What we are seeing here are two parties heavily involved in that Oplan Wolverine/Exodus now throwing brickbats or the proverbial buck at each other. So now we're back to square one asking the very same question that we asked more than a month and a half ago… "Who is telling the truth here?"
There is no question that the Filipino people have not been told the truth, and yet the president wants us to believe he was "fooled" by Gen. Napeñas? In the first place few lower ranked officials of any organization would dare fool their bosses, especially when there is nothing to gain by fooling the boss! But whether they believe it or not, the Filipino people already know that someone is trying to pull their legs. So it's just a matter of who it is… Alan Purisima, Napeñas, or the President?
In the meantime, I'm totally disgusted by the news that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front would not release their findings of the Mamasapano debacle to the Department of Justice and instead no less than DOJ Sec. Leila De Lima was told to secure this report in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Call it a huge wow! This incident happened in the Philippines and Malaysia for all intents and purposes is a foreign country. So why should they even dare accept the MILF findings? What is their real interest in this incident, which has nothing to do with them?
At this point, I also have a huge question on the investigation by the Department of Justice, more so that no less than DOJ Sec. De Lima already tried to insulate her boss, Pres. Aquino, by openly declaring to the Filipino nation that there was no "chain of command" in the SAF or the PNP. Like in a private company, when there is a general manager, there is always an assistant general manager. That's a chain of command. So in short, we can safely conclude that the DOJ investigation would exonerate the President because if Sec. De Lima were left on her own, the buck won't stop in the desk of the President!
Perhaps someone ought to remind the DOJ Secretary what US President Harry Truman said when he took office after the death of Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: "The buck stops here!" In short, you may pass the buck from person to person until it reaches the White House and it stops in the desk of Pres. Truman. But then things are totally different in the way things are run in Malacañang Palace where the game is called "Passing the buck!" So when will these people stop passing the buck?
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My good friend Fr. John Orat posted this query in his Facebook last week together with the photos of the dead Zulkifir Bin Hir a.k.a. Marwan.
"In the picture Marwan is dead. ABS-CBN tells us that Marwan allegedly fired several shots at the raiding team before he was gunned down, with shots to the chest and arm. From the picture you can see Marwan did not have time to get out of the hut. He was caught unawares. The mat, the pillows and the mosquito net are still in place. Was he still sleeping when they arrived? Who shot him? Was it in close-range? The hut was later burned. Does that hut have another story to tell?
Congratulations were made. Pictures were taken. There was no shooting war yet. The objective was accomplished. Who took the pictures? Where are the pictures now? And who were in the pictures? And where are the other pictures from the other cameras and cellphones? Those were historic pictures of a successful mission against an international terrorist.
The finger was cut. Who cut that finger? The finger was received. Who received that finger? The finger was transported? Who were in the transporting helicopter? Who was the high ranking official there? Who were those who left in the helicopter with the finger?
Simply put how did the finger step by step from Mamasapano reach the FBI in the U.S.? Where are the pictures and the finger now? To remember that finger meant millions and millions of pesos. Now the SAF policemen were exiting. It was a well-thought of plan. Everything was A-Okay. But something went wrong on their way out. Who made the order to "finish them off?"
And then I thought. Was it not that they had a hard time finding Purisima? Could he have been the high-ranking official in the helicopter? Could he have been the one who brought the finger to the U.S.?" Thanks for this Fr. John… those are relevant questions that we've been asking the President since the Jan.25th Mamasapano massacre…and a month and a half later, we're still far from the real truth and the buck passing continues!