Replace P-Noy? Cure is worse than disease

 Video by Cathy Miranda/INQUIRER.net

Furious at the death of 44 Philippine National Police-Special Action Force commandos in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, critics want President Aquino to resign. Militant groups want him impeached. A party-list congressman even proposed a coup d’etat. Do they realize what they are doing? (Guess who is egging them on.)

Who will replace P-Noy as President? Who else but the Vice President. And who is the Vice President? Jejomar Binay.

Naku po! Huwag po! Have mercy on us! The cure is worse than the disease. And yes, it is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

The Fallen 44 will rise from their graves if that happens.

Look what happened when then Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo replaced President Joseph Estrada. Corruption in government grew by leaps and bounds. If P-Noy is replaced, the next administration may break the GMA administration’s record in corruption. If what they say Binay did when he was mayor of Makati are true, imagine what he can do as president.

Wait na lang until P-Noy’s term expires. He has only about a year left. Then we can vote for the best candidate to succeed him.

“…They know not what they are doing,” Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice said of those who want P-Noy replaced. “If they want P-Noy to resign, then they want Binay. It’s as simple as that,” he added. Erice and Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello think that Binay is adding fuel to the fire ignited by the massacre.

Erice said Binay “probably realized he had no chance of winning an election after his alleged corrupt practices were uncovered, which is why he is moving heaven and earth to unseat the President.”

Binay “has been coming out with self-serving proposals to create a scenario in which he will take over. He wants the [Integrated Bar of the Philippines] to handle the Mamasapano probe, but everybody knows the IBP is his partner in his medical missions,” Erice said, adding:

“I have asked him before to stop rowing in two rivers. Make a choice. Are you for the President or against him? You can’t have it both ways.”

On the other hand, Bello said: “Binay appears to be taking advantage of the crisis to advance to the presidency. Out of respect to the Fallen 44 and their families, he should refrain from converting their loss into a presidential springboard.”

Members of the Makabayan bloc were “evasive” when asked to acknowledge that Binay would be the beneficiary should the President step down, according to Inquirer reporters who interviewed them.

Binay has been called many things. “Opportunist” has been added to the list.

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Constitutional experts say the Charter has to be amended to accommodate the Bangsamoro Basic Law. Shouldn’t it be the BBL that should conform to the Constitution?

That is why Congress is still wrestling with the BBL, to word it so it does not violate the Charter.

Congress is having a difficult time because government negotiators want to please their counterparts in the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Why? Are they afraid of the MILF? I don’t think so. I think they are just in a hurry to have the BBL passed before P-Noy’s term expires. They don’t want the next administration to get the credit. So is it true that P-Noy wants to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize? I think that’s now out of the question because 44 SAF commandos are now resting in peace.

Observers say government negotiators are bending over backwards too much to please the MILF negotiators who appear to be outwitting the government panel with the aid, critics suspect, of their sponsors in Malaysia, from where comes Marwan, the terrorist for whose extermination the 44 SAF commandos sacrificed their lives.

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It is becoming clear that distrust was a key to the sacrifice of the Fallen 44. The sacked commander of the SAF, Director Getulio Napeñas, did not inform his superior, PNP Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina, beforehand about the operation to get Marwan. He said the suspended PNP chief, Alan Purisima, told him not to. He said he informed Espina and the Army only after the operation had been launched.

The reason is that Napeñas was afraid of a leak that would tip off the targets about the operation and allow them to escape. He also said he did not inform the MILF, as provided in the peace accord, because he did not trust the MILF.

Several past attempts to capture Marwan failed because he had been tipped off and he managed to get away, Napeñas said. Last Jan. 25, he said, they decided to keep the operation secret until after it was already launched. As a result, the Army could not come to the rescue of the beleaguered commandos until it was too late.

The question arises: If they had informed others of the operation, would it have been successful? Or would Marwan have been able to escape, as he did in previous attempts? But if the SAF did inform the Army beforehand, would the 44 commandos lose their lives? Is the sacrifice of the 44 worth the death of one terrorist?

Napeñas said thousands of innocent civilians could die had Marwan lived and continued to train rebels in making bombs.

The good news is that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation has reported that based on DNA testing of the finger that was taken from a corpse, it was indeed Marwan who was killed. Marwan has been called the Osama bin Laden of Asia and very dangerous.