De Lima: Gordon to use Mamasapano probe to cover up Duterte admin’s ‘bunglings’

Senator Richard Gordon has no objective in reopening the Mamasapano investigation other than to “cover up” the present administration’s “bunglings,” Senator Leila de Lima said Monday.

In a statement, De Lima criticized Gordon’s plan to reopen the probe on the 2015 Mamasapano massacre, following the indictment of former President Benigno Aquino III for usurpation of authority and graft.

“Almost two years and a half since the Mamasapano incident, Senator Gordon wants to resurrect the dead issue with the added attraction of nailing former President Noynoy on the cross,” she said.

“This investigation will have no other purpose than to once again crucify the former President, and squeeze this issue for all the juice left and what it is still worth, in order to cover up for the present administration's own bunglings and incompetence,” De Lima added.

De Lima said the planned probe is another ploy to harass members of the opposition.

“For all the circus objectives that the revived Mamasapano investigation has to offer, to me it’s meant to be a mere distraction from the incompetence of this government and the subservience of Congress, and yet again, as a political leverage and harassment versus the opposition,” she said.

On Sunday, Gordon told radio dzBB that he plans to reopen the investigation on the Mamasapano incident, which killed more than 60 people, including 44 members of the Special Action Force (SAF).

Several of his colleagues questioned the objective of the probe, saying the incident has already been investigated twice by the previous Congress.

Senator Grace Poe, chairperson of the Senate public order committee, said in a committee report last Congress that Aquino was “ultimately responsible” for the botched police operation in Mamasapano. — Kathrina Charmaine Alvarez/RSJ/KVD, GMA News