(CNN Philippines) — Coordination, or lack of it, has been a central issue in the Mamasapano clash that has been hounding the country since January 25.
This was borne out in all the reports submitted by the Philippine National Police (PNP) Board of Inquiry (BOI), the Senate, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the International Monitory Team (IMT).
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As it turned out, however, coordination on the field proved to be very fast, efficient, and accurate — although that’s on the side of the enemy.
During the lower house’s second hearing on Tuesday (April 7) about the law enforcement operation that left 44 police commandos dead, sacked Special Action Force (SAF) head Director Getulio Napeñas said the reason why Oplan Exodus was veiled in secrecy was because there had been a number of instances wherein an operation was burned exactly because of coordination with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
Napeñas admitted that high-value targets, like terrorists Zulkifli bin Hir alias Marwan and Abdul Basit Usman, had contacts within the military and even the PNP — so much so that almost every move government forces make was relayed to enemy forces, practically in real time.
The police director cited instances when he and his deputy landed in an airport in South Cotabato, the news traveled at the speed of light through text messages in Maguindanao.
And when this happened, Napeñas said all that high-value targets had to do was to transfer hideouts, which could just be 200 to 300 meters away from where they were hiding.
This was the reason why SAF adopted a time on target policy — informing the military when the commandos were already in Barangay Tukanalipao.
Napeñas made the clarification, he said, to dispel the issue of mistrust between the police and the military.
Meanwhile, he also refuted the MILF report claiming that armed combatants in Mamasapano were “justified” in assaulting members of the 55th Special Action Company (SAC) because they had to defend their community.
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Napeñas stressed that his men made sure that the ground operation was 200 to 300 meters away from residents. And, as an inspection of the battle ground would show, the cornfield where 44 policemen fell was nowhere near any houses.
This, he said, only meant it was the MILF, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), the Justice for Islamic Movement (JIM), and private armed groups who went to the location of the commandos — and opened fire at the surrounded troopers.
