Was anyone in charge?

It took over three days after the carnage of SAF troops in Maguindanao before the nation heard from its President. For the most part, the only top officials responding to questions about it were DILG Sec. Mar Roxas and Gen. Leonardo Espina, the acting PNP chief, both of whom knew nothing.

And when P-Noy finally found the nerve to speak to the nation about it, he seemed very defensive, evasive if not outright misleading. Rule number one in crisis situations: the CEO must be visible, quickly responding to questions and giving reassurance.

P-Noy also left a lot of questions unanswered not because he didn’t know the answers. He was obviously trying to extricate himself from the mess. He was buying time perhaps hoping that if the truth came out later, people would have been over the anger everyone feels today.

What did P-Noy admit to? P-Noy did say he knew of the plan to capture the fugitive terrorists even as he tried to hide his role in this particular operation. I got the impression P-Noy was blaming the SAF chief for the failure to coordinate with the AFP units in the area. Here is how P-Noy explained it:

“I was talking directly to the SAF director.” (So P-Noy knew).

“I emphasized that other branches must be alerted, and their chiefs. It must be timely and the information complete.”

“I was surprised to learn that the heads of the Western Mindanao Command, or even of the 6th Infantry Division, had only been advised after the first encounter involving Marwan and Usman; the SAF forces were already retreating, and the situation had already become problematic.”

Now I understand why they were quick to suspend the SAF chief. I am almost sure he will be held totally accountable for the mess by the investigation that is to come. To the SAF chief’s credit, he took full responsibility… at least we have one true leader here.

P-Noy denied his executive secretary, Paquito Ochoa was involved in his capacity as head of the Presidential Anti Organized Crime Commission. But the talk among media people covering the incident is that Ochoa was not only involved, he was the conduit by which the SAF got through to P-Noy.

As the President himself said, capturing Marwan was a long standing plan for the PNP. A reporter covering the defense beat told me the PNP directorate for Intelligence was nursing the project back in 2011. Ochoa was said to have become interested enough to arrange for the police general proponent to be moved to ARMM.

But the general retired so the project was transferred to Ochoa’s PAOCC. The SAF was brought in because it is the only unit in the PNP trained for operations like this. It was not an ordinary warrant serving mission as P-Noy tried hard to make us believe.

Suspended PNP chief Purisima, as P-Noy admitted, knew about the project and was briefing P-Noy until he was suspended. Media folks knowledgeable about the project say the officials on top of it include Ochoa, a General Villasanta, and the suspended chief of SAF.

P-Noy didn’t quite know how to answer the question of why Mar Roxas was kept in the dark. He mumbled something in general terms that Mar knew of the project from past briefings, but that Mar knew nothing of the one that failed last weekend.

Given the large number of dead officers, the best trained in the PNP, there are many large questions still begging for answers. Who authorized the operation? P-Noy said he didn’t give the go signal for that particular operation because it is not required for him to do so. That doesn’t seem true given that Ochoa was involved and P-Noy loves to be in the thick of operations like this… parang video game.

Poor Mar Roxas. He has never looked more pathetic than now. The supposed favored successor to P-Noy was not good enough to be trusted by his boss with information about a police operation, even if it involved his turf. He was kept out of the loop, he was bypassed… yet it is Mar who must face the public and explain.

I have my issues with Mar, but I am with him on this one. He definitely deserves some respect, specially from P-Noy. It is bad enough Mar is already handicapped by a lack of respect by his police officers. As one police officer puts it, Mar does not understand field operations as he corrected Mar’s early assertion that the massacre was a misencounter.

Being totally kept out of the loop for a major operation under his command and virtually replaced by Executive Secretary Ochoa is horrible. Samar trounced Balai again. It was a repeat of the Luneta bus crisis when P-Noy trusted his buddy Rico Puno over then DILG Sec. Jesse Robredo until it was totally messed up. If Mar stays on, he deserves his doormat status. He is starting to look like one anyway.

What was the President thinking? His misplaced trust in Ochoa has simply done him in this time. If the peace process fails because of this incident, P-Noy can only blame himself.

The delay in P-Noy’s explanation of what happened contributed to a general state of uneasiness. And when he finally surfaced, enough information had already circulated that made many of his assertions seem like sheer obfuscation or worse, palusot.

No wonder former President Fidel V. Ramos thinks the problem lies with “poor strategic direction from the Commander-in-Chief” and “inadequate command guidance from the higher commander” could have set off this tragedy.

FVR enumerated some other factors that caused the carnage: inadequate confidence-building measures among the civilian-military-police stakeholders, poor/lack of coordination, faulty written standard operating procedures and rules of engagement, slipshod monitoring of the existing “ceasefire,” lack of teamwork between maneuver and fire support elements, poor unit troop leadership, poor tactical intelligence, and lack of sincerity to pursue peace on the part of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The peace process is stalled. Given public sentiment, no way any sane member of Congress will vote for the proposed peace pact. The lack of trust on the part of government in not involving the GRP negotiating panel and the MILF counterparts in seeking out the terrorists was a strategic mistake.

If they sought the cooperation of the MILF in arresting the fugitives, it would have been a good way of testing the sincerity of the MILF. If they refused to help, at least we know before we sign on the dotted line of the agreement.

But then again, I agree with P-Noy that the unfortunate incident is not reason to go back on the peace process. There is really no alternative but to go on and continue to support the peace process because the alternative of all-out war can only bring more grief to people in the area indefinitely.

We have tried all out war in the past and it brought no end to the conflict. Erap is wrong about his war mongering as a reaction to the blotched police operation. Maybe Erap should put his sons and grandsons where his mouth is and volunteer them even now to serve in Maguindanao.

What happened was totally unfortunate. We lost over 40 of the best trained of our SAF troops. On a purely material level, training the same number of people will cost us a lot of time and money. In reality, their deaths caused grief and the loss of fathers, brothers, breadwinners for many families.

Incidentally, I wonder if we even provide troops we send out to combat with proper protective gear like bulletproof vests? In one Napoles scam, the so called Kevlar helmets for the Marines were shown to not only be overpriced, but fake… provided no bullet proof protection at all. I realize the cost of proper battle gear is expensive, but the lives lost without it are priceless.

The heroes in this episode, aside from the police officers, are the peacemakers (Committee for the Cessation of Hostilities) working for the peace panel. They explained to Chiara Zambrano of ABS-CBNNews how they risked their lives by going into the frontline and tried to open communication channels between the protagonists. It didn’t matter that bullets were still whizzing by them while they were doing their work.

Can P-Noy redeem himself from this mess? He failed to explain himself well enough last Wednesday. Did he learn valuable lessons from the tragedy? Probably… but too late to matter for all of those who lost their lives because their leaders goofed.

FVR said “These days there appear to be too much of a complacent, laid-back attitude on the part of high government officials, peace negotiators and even field commanders in regard to the ongoing peace process.” 

It is so true. They have to be reminded that incompetence and failure kills.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco