Sitting ducks?

It’s something every military family dreads, and for the Lorin family of Zamboanga City, the devastating news came last weekend: 2nd Lt. Alfredo Lorin VI, “Limboy” to kith and kin and the sixth of eight children, was dead. Along with six other young Marines, he was killed in a clash with Abu Sayyaf bandits in Patikul, Sulu, on May 25.

But was it really an encounter, or an ambush? While the military has described the incident as a “chance meeting-encounter” between the soldiers and an armed group of 50 men in Tugas, a hilly jungle in Patikul, a report by the town police said it was more an ambush, thus the high number of casualties among the soldiers—five Marines killed on the spot and nine others wounded.

Lorin, 26, led the group of soldiers whose purported mission was to track down the kidnappers of Casilda Villarasa, a Marine’s wife who worked as a medical technologist at the Sulu Provincial Hospital. She was kidnapped a week ago and released on May 24.

Senior Insp. Conrad William Gutierrez, chief of the Patikul police, said the soldiers were heading to their detachment when “they were ambushed.” But Col. Jose Johriel Cenabre, commander of the 2nd Marine Brigade and head of Joint Task Force Sulu, had a different scenario: “Our troops were not able to reposition and retaliate because the engagement was within the civilian area, which is adjacent to a mosque. The attackers took advantage of the civilians, thus making it more difficult for our troops to fire back.”

Such conflicting reports can only raise questions and speculations. Already, an old hand in incidents like this has taken issue with the military’s version of and explanation for the bloodbath. If retired colonel Ariel Querubin, a former superintendent of the Philippine Marine Corps Training Center, is to be believed, the soldiers indeed could have had difficulty firing back—but perhaps not because of poor location, as Cenabre has asserted, but because they weren’t allowed to do so.

“They were on a test mission,” said Querubin, a decorated officer in his prime. “These were students—they may be the best considering they were with the Recon (reconnaissance team), they belonged to the Marines’ elite team, but the doctrine of the Recon is basically just to go out there to gather data. They are not there to engage their enemies.”

A test mission is usually given to any specialized elite unit of the military, according to Querubin. The “class” runs for at least six months, and the students apply on the ground whatever they learn for that period, he said. Upon completion of the test mission, “they automatically graduate and become part of the regular forces of the Recon Battalion.” Querubin said recon units are “the chosen ones,” the best of each battalion. But unlike the Special Forces and Scout Rangers, these units are not allowed to engage their enemies and “are there to gather data and pass the data to the operating troops.”

So what happened? Why did these soldiers on a supposed test mission become apparent sitting ducks for the Abu Sayyaf?

Querubin conceded it was too early to claim lapses in the operation, but he hinted at problematic decision-making in the military hierarchy: “The problem with the senior officers, they always look up to the elite forces as supermen. Definitely, these units will never say no because they belong to elite forces.” He recalled a similar test mission in August 2007 that also ended in the killing of five junior officers in Ungkaya Pukan, Basilan. “After that, when the doctrine on Recon was strictly followed, there were no more casualties when there were test missions,” he said.

Were short cuts made in the planning, preparation and eventual deployment of the soldiers into the territory of an enemy, which incidentally the military has constantly described as a spent force? Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, the Armed Forces chief of staff, has angrily dismissed Querubin’s remarks. But the military owes it to the bereaved families, and to the public at large, to get at the truth and to ensure that these young soldiers are not recklessly being put in harm’s way.

Any loss of life is tragic, and doubly so in the case of bright young men like Lorin who, born to a poor family, graduated valedictorian from grade school, was both a working student and a scholar in high school, and then made it to the elite Philippine Military Academy—only to be cut down so soon, and in a manner that demands frank, no-spin answers.