Enrile wants to revive Senate discussion on Mamasapano incident

Published October 7, 2015 6:00pm

(Updated 9:05 a.m., Oct. 8) Invoking transparency, Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile revived Wednesday in the Senate the deadly Mamasapano incident as he demanded a full plenary discussion on the committee report on the matter.

“I move that we bring back to the Senate that committee report and discuss it in plenary in full debate. Forty-four lives, not one, not two, not three, but 44 lives of our soldiery died and perished in that event and we are going to take it lightly? No way,” Enrile said in his privilege speech.

The Senate report was earlier submitted by the committee on public order and dangerous drugs headed by Sen. Grace Poe and signed by 21 senators.

The committee report stated that President Benigno Aquino III is responsible for the Mamasapano operation which led to the deaths of over 60 people, including 44 police officers of the PNP Special Action Force and at least 17 fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

At the height of the Senate hearings on the Jan. 25 Mamasapano clash, Enrile was on hospital arrest at the PNP General Hospital in Camp Crame over plunder and graft charges in connection with the alleged pork barrel scam.

Enrile, 91, returned to the Senate on August 24, nearly a week after the Supreme Court granted his petition to post bail due to poor health.

Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano also said the senators have earlier agreed to discuss the committee report during the plenary debate on the proposed Bangsamoro Basic Law since the resource persons involved will be the same.

But while agreeing that the Mamasapano incident can be discussed alongside the BBL, Enrile said: “I think we owe it to the nation to focus on this (Mamasapano incident) on its own.”

“The thrust of my inquiry is whether there is a plenary debate on that report. If there is none, I think it is our duty to do it. Nothing is to be put under the rug, everything must come out,” said Enrile.

He wanted to know the movement, action, and presence or absence of the involved government officials when the incident happened.

“I’m demanding that every moment of those hours from dawn of Sunday (January 25) when the event started until it ended that same day. The movement, the action, the presence or the absence of every high official of government in this country must be accounted for,” he said.

He said that there are a lot of questions that he would like to ask.

“If we want to really be open and transparent to the people then we must do this. Otherwise, there will be suspicion that we are hiding something and I personally think that we are hiding something,” said Enrile.

Poe and Cayetano agreed with Enrile’s motion.

“I fully support the transparency call of Sen. Enrile. We are waiting for the Majority Leader to schedule the event,” said Poe.

Cayetano, for his part, said: "I don’t have any objection and subject to the Senate calendar, we will schedule it for a full discussion of the plenary.”

^{Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile seeks a plenary debate on the Mamasapano encounter report as Senator Grace Poe, chair of the Senate public order and dangerous drugs committee, listens on Wednesday, October 7. Benjie Castro}

‘Election propaganda’

Also in his privilege speech, Enrile said the survivors and families of SAF 44 have expressed apprehension that the Mamasapano incident will be used for propaganda in the 2016 elections.

“They nurse the understandable fear that the injustice done to them would just as quickly be drowned by the noise and frenzy of the 2016 election fever; and that if the tragedy is at all mentioned, such would only be used for political propaganda,” he said.

“After all, many among us who expressed their sympathies and their commitment for justice to be served and for those responsible to be held fully accountable are now aspiring to be the next top leaders of the nation,” he added.

He further said that he met the survivors and families of SAF 44 at the PNP General Hospital, where he was under hospital arrest from July 4 last year until he was allowed to post bail over a year later.

“I had several personal encounters with them and their families. These were occasions too for me to talk to some of them, and they related their frightening recollections of the bloody massacre,” he said.

“At the height of the investigations being conducted by different agencies and bodies, including this Senate, the survivors and their dependents had expressed to me their resentment and disenchantment as it seemed to some of them that the death of the SAF 44 was now largely being exploited to serve political ends, some for political propaganda,” he added.

Enrile said it was not only for the courage, valor, and sacrifices of the fallen and surviving SAF members in the incident to be placed in the annals of the Chamber, but also to demonstrate to the public and let the people know how their Senate, “we the elected sovereign representatives of the people, dealt with the complex issues that were discovered and brought to light during the Senate investigation.”

“They must know, as well, how each member of this Senate took their respective stands and duties in the findings of the investigation and the specific recommendations contained in the report,” he said.

The senator said the survivors and the families of the fallen SAF 44 had expressed their fervent hopes and prayers that only the real truth would come out of the investigations and that the heroism of their loved ones would not be dimmed by the passing of time.

Charges

In April, the Department of Justice recommended the filing of criminal charges against 90 people in connection with the deaths of over 60 people, including 44 elite policemen, in the January 25 Mamasapano clash.

The second and final part of the results of the DOJ's investigation on the Mamasapano encounter is set to be released on Thursday, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said Tuesday. — RSJ/KG, GMA News

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