A man who is responsible must also be liable!

Sen. Grace Poe and former Pres. Fidel V. Ramos  are both making the headlines of the national dailies by asking Pres. Aquino III to say "I'm sorry" and then what? What's the game plan here? If PNoy apologizes to the nation, then all will be forgiven? I'm sorry, but I totally disagree with this "forcing" the President to ask for apologies when his mind strongly believes that he bears no responsibility on the Mamasapano massacre. If Pres. Aquino gives in apologizes, do you think this would solve the issue of the Mamasapano massacre? I don't think so.

First of all, if the president had the balls to apologize to the Filipino people, he must do so with a contrite heart, which I doubt. More important of all, he must tell the nation the whole truth as to what really happened in Mamasapano, and why the 44 Special Action Force  troopers had to die in the hands of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front where many of these men were brutally murdered as we all saw on the cellphone video that was uploaded by the MILF killers themselves.

Come on now, PNoy didn't even apologize to the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong when 8 Hong Kong tourists were killed by a deranged Philippine National Police official. Without that apology, relations between Hong Kong and the Philippines were strained to the breaking point, it threatened the livelihood of Overseas Filipino Workers  working in Hong Kong.

So why are FVR and Sen. Poe trying to "force" this apology from the president when he really is the kind of person who doesn't care if the 44 SAF troopers died at the hands of the MILF. If the Aquino presidency is in dire straits today, PNoy can only blame himself for being so bull headed.

What gets my gall is that people like Sen. Grace Poe and yes, even the head of the PNP's Board of Inquiry are telling the Filipino people that the president broke the chain of command but he is not liable. How can one who is responsible for that debacle not be liable? We also have read that as of press time, 20 senators have already signed the 129-page Senate joint committee report that found Pres. Aquino politically liable for the Mamasapano operation. Only senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Lito Lapid, and Antonio Trillanes did not sign this report.

I saw on Facebook a report that Sen. Antonio Trillanes has openly declared his intention to ran for vice president. Could this be the reason why he did not sign this report so that the Liberal Party might consider him as  its vice presidential bet for the 2016 elections, that is, if there would be elections in 2016.

Incidentally last Wednesday was the 47th anniversary of the infamous "Jabidah Massacre," which happened on Mar. 18, 1968. I was only a young lad of 17 years when we read the headlines about the Jabidah massacre. This plan was hatched by then Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos dubbed "Operation Merdeka" where he put Maj. Eduardo Abdul Latif Martelino as Operations Officer. The aim was to annex Sabah which was grabbed by Malaysia when they were given Independence by the British.

The plan was to recruit some 200 Tausug and Sama Muslims to infiltrate Sabah and annex it to the Philippines. But somehow something went wrong and at least 20 Tausugs were killed. But this massacre was never investigated to the point that today no one knows why those Muslim recruits were massacred. Because the Philippines has a penchant for not solving its problems like the claim on Sabah, today these issues still stick out as a sore thumb in the nation's consciousness. 

Come to think of it, the Philippines never had a moment's peace under our presidents. Pres. Marcos had his Jabidah massacre, Pres. Cory Aquino had her Mendiola and Hacienda Luisita massacre, Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had the 1st Maguindanao Massacre by the Ampatuan warlords, and now PNoy has the Mamasapano massacre in his hands. This is why we need to do a paradigm shift from a presidential form of government and shift into a Parliamentary/Federal system for the sake of the nation's growth.

So back to the issue about Sen. Grace Poe and former Pres. Fidel V. Ramos on their trying to extract an apology from Pres. Aquino, who believes that he was not part of the chain of command in the PNP. Well, former Pres. Ramos revealed that when he was president he issued Executive Order No. 226 in the year 1995 wherein he said that "The President has the direct control and supervision over the PNP." So was Executive Order no.226 repealed or replaced by Pres. Aquino? If not, then there is a chain of command that the President violated!

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