There are only two cases which, if pursued, could realistically land former President Noynoy Aquino in jail. His successor, President Rodrigo Duterte, has just ordered the creation of an independent commission that will come up with the definitive report on one of the two.
Duterte, in a meeting at Malacañang with the relatives of the 44 slain members of the PNP Special Action Force on the eve of the second anniversary of the Mamasapano Massacre, declared that the seven-person panel will finally complete the story for the entire country. The fact-finding body will be patterned, Duterte said, after the Agrava Commission that probed the 1983 assassination of former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.
Ironically, at the center of the two-year controversy is the son of Ninoy, the president who gave the go-ahead for the disastrous Oplan Exodus and who assigned his favorite police official (who was suspended for corruption at the time) to lead the SAF 44 to their deaths. This is the same president who said he would bring the incident with him to his grave—including, it turns out, all the important details covered up by his ill-starred administration.
Duterte took pains to relay to Aquino that he did not want to fight with him. But now that Duterte is president, he said he wants to know what really happened on that cornfield in Maguindanao two years ago—like why government forces did nothing to rescue their beleaguered comrades after they were surrounded by a superior Moro rebel force, who received the $5- million reward money offered by the United States for the capture and killing of terrorist bomber Marwan, why only two of the 44 were given the Medal of Valor and many other important details of the one-sided, day-long battle and its aftermath.
Listening to Duterte speak about the massacre, I got the distinct feeling that he has long been itching to reopen the case, which the Aquino administration tried to bury with all the propaganda power that it could muster. I could feel the famous empathy that Duterte has in spades and which his predecessor (who would not even meet the bodies of the slain soldiers when they arrived in Manila because he just had to open a car-assembly plant) was totally devoid of.
But why reopen the Mamasapano case, the remaining adherents of Aquino must be asking themselves. Why, as the new champion of the Yellows, Vice President Leni Robredo, said recently in so many words, can’t we just move on from the massacre?
Because, as Duterte himself said, if it were just one or two policemen killed in the pursuit of a terrorist that the US wanted neutralized, there would really be no problem. Policemen and soldiers die in the line of duty, after all, and even their relatives accept this as a fact of life for our men in uniform.
But 44 highly-trained police commandos were slaughtered because the government did not want to risk fresh hostilities with the Muslim rebels, even if it apparently craved the approval of the US and the reward money it offered. And no one has really been held responsible for the carnage, two years after, nor have the burning questions surrounding it been answered.
That’s why. Does anybody need any more reason to finally see this story to its bitter, bloody conclusion?
Oh, and by the way, if you’re wondering what the other case is that has an excellent chance of landing Aquino in jail, it’s the one that will be filed in connection with the previous administration’s short-lived Disbursement Acceleration Program. If Duterte decides to look into the looting of billions in government funds by the previous administration for the purpose of buying off the cooperation of Congress allies, I think Aquino had better start finding a hospital that will take him in as a long-term patient.
And I think that eventually, Duterte will get around to investigating DAP.
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Like many Filipinos who followed the developments about the massacre two years ago, Duterte seems to believe that all of the pieces of the Mamasapano story are already available, in the reports generated by both Houses of Congress, which investigated the case, as well as the PNP, which conducted its own probe. But all of these details were never completely integrated and synthesized to come up with the definitive report on the massacre.
This is because the previous administration did everything it could to prevent the investigating bodies from reaching the conclusion that everybody already arrived at on their own: That Aquino himself ordered the get-Marwan operation with the help of his best cop buddy and former bodyguard, suspended PNP chief Alan Purisima.
And also, when the massacre started, everyone knows that Aquino did not even lift a finger to save the commandos. For him, the operation was already completed with the killing of Marwan—that the 44 SAF troopers were killed getting the terrorist was just unfortunate and something everyone should move on from.
Now Duterte has ordered a reopening of the massacre case in an environment that is finally rid of the awesome propaganda machinery assembled by Aquino and is now ready to look at the previous president and his legacy in a more objective manner. May justice finally be served.
