AFP ready to help in Mamasapano but PNP coordination ‘too little, too late’

By ELIZABETH MARCELO, GMA News

Published February 3, 2015 4:48pm

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief General Gregorio Pio Catapang on Tuesday said that the Philippine National Police (PNP) failed to adequately coordinate with the military before conducting an operation to arrest terrorist leaders in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao which led to the death of 44 elite police troopers.

Catapang told reporters that as early as 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, Army troops have already been exerting efforts to send reinforcements to the SAF troops trapped in a firefight with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and its breakaway group, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

He, however, said that it was difficult for the soldiers to determine the exact location of the SAF men.

“Coordination means life and death because if you fail to coordinate, you’ll be failing to ensure to get to the area where you are needed most…not know what equipment, firepower you’ll need and you don’t know where to land if there will be artillery fire or where to fire your artillery, you might hit your own forces,” Catapang said.

“Yes, there was lack of coordination on the part of the forces that entered the Mamasapano area..." Catapang said in a chance interview after attending an executive session of the House ad hoc committee on the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).

Catapang said "the Armed Forces was there when the SAF needed us but unfortunately, the coordination came in too little, too late."

"They (SAF troopers) were already there and the firefight already started when they informed us," he added.

Hesitant to share Marwan intel

In Camp Aguinaldo, the AFP leadership said the PNP-SAF was hesitant to share information regarding its operation in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, on January 25, making it difficult for the military to respond immediately to the request for reinforcement.

This was according to AFP spokesman Col. Restituto Padilla on Tuesday, as he announced that the military has concluded its investigation on the bloody clash that left 44 elite policemen dead, staining the ongoing peace process between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“May hesitancy [sa parte ng SAF] na ibigay lahat ng impormasyon tungkol sa operasyon,” Padilla told reporters at a press briefing.

He said there was a thick “fog of war” during the January 25 incident, but denied that the military was ordered not to provide reinforcement to the embattled policemen.

“Hindi po totoo na may pumigil sa Armed Forces [para tulungan ang SAF]," Padilla said, adding that the military was ready to provide ground assistance as early as 6 a.m. on the fateful day.

However, there was not enough information to proceed, Padilla said.

“Kulang ang information kaya hindi [kami] makagalaw. Hindi po nila alam kung ano ang dapat gawin,” he said.

Coordination takes weeks

Catapang pointed out that coordination between the AFP and PNP for any operation usually take weeks and required elaborate planning.

“Coordination takes a while...When you go to war, you have to plan for days even weeks, because everything will (have to) be coordinated....In this case (Mamasapano encounter) we do not know the target, from where they’ll come from, what’s their plan...providing air support was quite difficult because we do not know where they are,” Catapang said.

Catapang said that based on their own fact-finding investigation, there was no culpability on the part of the AFP regarding the Mamasapano incident.

“What we conducted was a fact-finding mission to find out whether the Armed Forces was remiss on its job in assuring that our counterpart, the PNP, were fully supported in their operation. On our part we’re be able to say that our soldiers did the best in those extreme circumstances,” Catapang said.

Report to the President

Catapang appeared before the committee to explain why the AFP has yet to submit its comprehensive report on the Mamasapano incident, which the committee had earlier requested.

“We’d like to assure our honorable Congressmen that indeed we have finished our report, but you know, we have to pass the report to the chain of command, I still have to pass the report to Defense Sec. (Voltaire) Gazmin and another report to the President (Benigno Aquino III) before it becomes an official report, but rest assured that the report is already finished,” Catapang told reporters.

“For the mean time that’ll be my statement…all of these will be made available to public…we know for a fact that the truth must be learned and known by the people,” he added.

Committee chairman Cagayan De Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez on Monday gave the PNP, AFP, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and the local government of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) until Monday next week, February 9, to submit to the committee their respective reports on the Mamasapano incident.

Otherwise, Rodriguez said the committee would suspend its deliberations on the BBL.

On January 25, policemen belonging to the PNP-SAF had a day-long firefight against members the MILF BIFF in Mamasapano town in Maguindanao. The incident led to the death of 44 SAF members, while 12 others were left injured. The MILF announced that 17 of their fighters died in the clash.

The government had earlier called the incident a “misencounter” as the MILF and the BIFF were not the intended targets of the police force, but Jemaah Islamiyah leader Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan and foreign-trained Filipino bomb maker Abdul Basit Usman who is believed to be a high-ranking leader of the Abu Sayyaf group. —NB, GMA News

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