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WATCH: Full video of ex-SAF chief Napeñas' briefing a day after Mamasapano op

Published February 27, 2015 9:51pm

GMA News has obtained a copy of a video of sacked Special Action Force chief Police Director Getulio Napeñas Jr. briefing Interior Secretary Manuel "Mar" Roxas, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, and police and military officials a day after the bloody clash at Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

He discusses the mission, when the Philippine Army was informed of the operation, and why he decided to wait to tell the military about it.

Here is a transcript of the briefing:

Defense Secretary Gazmin: Before you jumped off, did you ever coordinate with the adjacent forces?

Napeñas: Not during jump off, sir. But when we reached this point, we did coordinate with the 6th ID (Infantry Division, Philippine Army). We tried to call him. Tried calling him.

Interior Secretary Roxas: What time? What time was that? You tried calling him?

Napeñas: Yes, sir. I called him, actually, sir. And sent him a text message. In the morning.

Roxas: What time was that?

Napeñas: That's about -- Can we see the timeline? That's about... Paki-ano yung timeline natin.

Roxas: Can you get an assistant?

Napeñas: It's okay, sir. That should be in between 3:00 to 4:00 in the morning, sir. That could be checked through the text message of General [Edmundo] Pangilinan if he saved that text message, sir.

Gazmin: What was the text of your message?

Napeñas: The text of the message was... I was informing him we are doing a special operation against high-value targets in his area.

Gazmin: Three o'clock? Sabi mo? Four?

Napeñas: Yes, sir. Three to four. Something like that.

Gazmin: It says here, five. Your text message was received at 5:00 in the morning. 5:06 a.m.

N: Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I didn't really know the exact time when I sent the text message, sir, but I sent --

Gazmin: You were already... You had already started the operation?

Napeñas: Yes, sir.

Roxas: In fact, at 0500h, nandun na sila sa operation.

Gazmin: That's not coordination. You call that coordination?

Napeñas: If I may say something, sir? The operations that we've been doing against -- The subject. We started this one as early as 2013, sir. In... Sometime in March, February... or something like that in 2013, we did all the preparations for this operation in coordination with 6th ID, including JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command), sir.

But then -- we even had an executive session that it will be the PNP Special Action Force who will be carrying out the operation rather than the JSOC. But then, while our troops were moving away, we were not given the mechanized brigade support, so we had to cancel the operation.

We did another two attempts in coordination with the 6th ID, but then we did not get through.

That's why considering the sensitivity of this packet, this time, in our task evaluation -- in our task checklist, the coordination with 6th ID should be time on target, or when the groups are in the area.

Roxas: From the time of 2013 March, plus those other two attempts, did you report to whoever it was? Up the chain? To coordinate? In other words, if you felt that SAF was not receiving the support... I don't recall ever being called to a meeting with Sec Volts (Gazmin) or the president to talk about lack of support or --

Napeñas: Yes, sir. The first attempt, some time in February or March -- but the record is there, sir. I gave a report to the Chief, PNP (P/Dir. Gen. Alan Purisima) and I believe, sir, it reached the higher echelon about the non-support of the mechanized brigade during that first attempt, sir, in 2013.

Roxas: What about the... presumably, assuming that that happened, there was never a briefing that was called to bring the various uniformed services together on this matte, so what about the other two attempts?

Napeñas: It was also reported to the Chief, PNP is not something... not just the Chief, PNP... to the higher authorities.

Roxas: Did you talk to anybody higher than the Chief, PNP?

Napeñas: No, sir. No, sir.

Roxas: So, you only talked to the Chief, PNP.

Napeñas: Yes, sir.

Roxas: At the time. Who was?

Napeñas: General Purisima.

Roxas: So in all these three attempts, your only conversation is with...

Napeñas: General Purisima.

[Long silence]

Roxas: Now, for this last attempt, who did you coordinate with?

Napeñas: We were --

Roxas: I am the SILG, I have not heard of these previous attempts, or this last attempt. This involves 400 men. So, who did you coordinate with?

Napeñas: General Purisima, sir...

Roxas: Who was already...

Napeñas: On leave, sir. Myself... S/Supt. Jojo Mendez, sir, and we briefed the president.

Roxas: And the guidance was?

Napeñas:The guidance was to study the initial oplan...

Roxas: Was the guidance to keep this from the Armed Forces? Was there a guidance to keep this from the heirarchy of the PNP? Was there a guidance to keep this to yourselves?

Napeñas: My recommendation when I was briefing the president, sir, was we will inform the AFP time on target, sir.

Roxas: So, what is the status at present? Are all of the men, except for the 26 already... recovered? Or returned? Accounted for?

Napeñas: Yes, sir. They're all accounted for. They are now providing security into the retrieval operations in the area now. But they are all accounted for.

Roxas: Ah, so they are still on site?

Napeñas: Yes, sir. Not all, sir. Not all. Because one...

Roxas: Except the dead, ano.

Napeñas: Except for the dead... One unit in 1st Battalion. We released him already, sir, because they are assigned in [garbled].

Roxas: Now is not the time to... The most important thing is to find out the care and welfare of these missing and the dead...

Jojo Mendez is the IG (Intelligence Group) person?

Napeñas: Yes.

Roxas: So the IG... the intelligence was good because the target -- assuming that that's the target, the target was where the intelligence said that they would be. So it's only the execution now. Correct?

Napeñas: Yes, sir.The executon went smoothly from this point up to the neutralization of the target. It's in the extraction, sir, that we were met by a lot of enemies coming from this area. And even coming from other municipalities.

Roxas: With whom did you file your concept of operations, your, ah, all the other documents? Your tactical deployment and so on and so forth. With whom did you file that?

Napeñas: It's in our computer, sir.

Roxas: Ha?

Napeñas: It's in our computer, sir. With one of the officers.

Roxas: That's it for now.

Gazmin: From hereon, we will have an executive session...

— JDS/JST, GMA News

Tags: mamasapanoclash