Long after the raw emotions evoked by the arrival honors given to the 44 fallen police commandos have passed, and the clamor for justice dimmed and buried by the government’s bureaucratic red tape, the question on who supervised the botched “Oplan Wolverine” will probably remain unanswered. That, and who will be held accountable for the massacre aside from those who pulled the triggers.
Even after everything that happened, the mission’s goal was to get Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias “Marwan” and according to some survivors, it was achieved.
But the cost was too steep and the other target, Basit Usman, was nowhere to be found. As things stand, the fallout from the operation would probably be the most difficult hurdle to the peace talks.
What’s interesting is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front’s (MILF) insistence that it was as much a victim of the incident as the 44 police commandos that fell from the gunfire unleashed by some of its men, claiming casualties and injuries.
The MILF is conducting its own investigation into the incident, but if it is committed to the peace process, it should also be transparent and accessible to the committee assigned to investigate the incident, including open access to the areas where the misencounter took place.
The rebel group continually denied that Marwan had been hiding out in their territory and this may be true owing to reports that the breakaway Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) also has a stronghold in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
President Benigno Aquino III’s admission that he knew of the operation and that suspended PNP chief Alan Purisima even supervised it showed the dangers of trying to compartmentalize sensitive, crucial operations from agencies that are supposed to be directly involved, like the Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG).
The classic analogy of “not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing” applies only to charity and not to offensives targeting terrorists. The President’s admission is another stain in Purisima’s record and yet another ground for the public to demand accountability from him and the administration.
At a time when radical extremist groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS are expanding their targets to include even powerful democracies like the US and some European countries and their allies in Asia, the national government can ill afford to botch operations that would not only endanger the lives of their troops and police, but also risk the gains of the peace process.