There will never be a final word on the Mamasapano incident.

Even when President Aquino shall have gone from Malacanang, even when the senators shall have rested their case and settled with Grace Poe’s report last year about the incident, and even when the families of the fallen 44 shall have forgiven those who cruelly slaughtered the gallant law enforcers, people will still speak about Mamasapano.

Newspaper columnists and broadcast commentators will speak about the SAF 44 and Mamasapano every time a similar situation presents itself, whether in Mindanao or elsewhere in the country. Young aspiring police and military officer cadets will discuss the incident in their classes at their respective academies; surely, their conscientious instructors will deem it necessary to include a piece or two of the Mamasapano story in their lessons on tactics as they mold cadets into future officers of the PNP and the AFP.

Whether BBL passes or not, people will not easily forget about the Fallen 44, because there is still so much that need to be established about the incident.

Aquino’s defenders have been hitting left and right at critics of his handling of the Mamasapano fiasco, citing political motive whenever anyone speaks against the President’s behavior. They should stop that and instead admit to the fact that Aquino has not fully owned up to the failures of Mamasapano. Yes, there were several failures; killing Marwan was a success, but then what followed after were a series of failures that eventually resulted in the deaths of the SAF 44.

Was Aquino to blame for the deaths of the 44? That is a definite no. It was the MILF and the BIFF and the other armed civilian groups in the area that massacred them, not Aquino.

But Aquino cannot escape from responsibility for allowing a suspended police general to be at the helm of such a high-priority police operation, and for deliberately disregarding the chain of command in the PNP during the execution of Oplan Exodus. He also cannot escape responsibility for allowing the operation to proceed without the prerequisite coordination with the Armed Forces, which is just one of the major faults in the planning. 

He could never escape responsibility for not acting as a Commander-in-Chief in the many hours that followed after he started receiving reports that two companies of the SAF were being fired on, one of them right in the middle of a pintakasi – a deadly conglomeration of all armed groups, rebel or non-rebel, in the area intent on annihilating any exterior force, especially police or military, that wanders into their lair.

His defenders would again point to General Napeñas as solely responsible for the failures of Mamasapano, as everyone else have been doing, from the suspended General Purisima to Mar Roxas and ex-PNP OIC General Espina to all of those who represented the AFP in the senate hearings.  All of them wanted to pin down Napeñas and bury him alive, because – to an equal degree as the pintakasi  - they were all intent on protecting President Aquino. 

But there is no way Aquino can ever escape responsibility. People must be reminded that when soldiers go to battle, or when police commandos go on a dangerous mission, they always presume they were receiving legitimate orders which they never question.  Many of those heroes of SAF did not know that Napeñas was getting orders only from Purisima and not from the PNP hierarchy. Napeñas himself did not question why it was Purisima and not General Espina ordering him about, because there was the President himself right on top. In short, those brave SAF trusted Napeñas with their lives, and Napeñas trusted both Purisima and the President with his.

Napeñas  presumed that with the President and Commander-in-Chief on top, he’d get all the support necessary if the going got tough for his men at Mamasapano, even with a suspended Purisima in the middle. 

But of course, maybe he wasn’t planning on failing in this operation. Maybe he never expected to fail. He must have been very confident that they would get Marwan, and Usman as well, and his troops would pull out safely and speedily as planned. Nay, he must have been over-confident, because he had the President and Commander-in-Chief himself backing him up.

Sad to say, the backing up ended the moment Aquino started sensing something was wrong.

That day, there was a total breakdown of government as far as the Mamasapano  incident is concerned.  More than 120 other SAF troopers were no more than 600 meters from where the 55th SAC were pinned down, but they did not reinforce, citing heavy volume of fire. Sen. Antonio Trillanes says they could made a big difference in the battle had they move to reinforce the 55th. Army reinforcements were in the area as early as 7 a.m. but did not go in, saying the area wasn’t “tankable” – they couldn’t use their tanks in the battle zone.

Aquino was in Zamboanga that January 25 morning, with everyone who could have ordered a more decisive reinforcing action to support the SAF – the defense secretary, the DILG secretary, the AFP chief of staff, the chief of the PNP and even their sub-alterns. But for some reason, none of them gave that decisive order – not even the Commander-in-Chief. We all now know he was busy exchanging text messages that morning with Purisima and Napenas, without informing Gazmin, Roxas, Catapang and Espina that something dire was unfolding in Mamasapano.

It was only later that day that the others learned that Oplan Exodus was launched that morning. By that time, almost all of 55th SAC had been wiped out.  Any talk of reinforcement at that time was already out of the question.

That day, Aquino and his men could have saved the lives of those brave SAF men. They failed, and they failed collectively.

As General Catapang put it bluntly, the army, because of peace agreement limitations, went there not to reinforce, but to extricate. He was to learn later that the soldiers were to be extricating only bodies.

For feedback, send an email to andy.vitalicio@gmail.com or text 0915-535-4006.