If I were President Benigno Aquino III, I would have admitted full knowledge of Oplan Exodus before, during and after the operation, for the following reasons:
- As commander in chief of both the police and the military, I ought to know the operation whose objective was to arrest the notorious international terrorist Marwan.
- The planning to get Marwan started in December 2010. For more than three years so many attempts were made by the police and military and they either had failed or had been aborted. I delegated my instructions to get Marwan to experts of military and police operations, and my directive, among others, was to save lives, particularly civilians.
- A denial of knowledge of the Jan. 25 operation would be unbelievable. It goes against common sense and would make me look in the eyes of many people an inutile commander in chief.
Secondly, I should not have gone to the Mitsubishi plant launching in Laguna, and instead spent precious time to be personally present at the arrival of the bodies of the SAF 44 in Villamor Air Base last Jan. 29, out of respect for them and to honor their heroism.
And I would have explained to all the few hours’ delay in expressing my condolences to the bereaved families of the 44 slain police commandos.
The Jan. 25 operation to get Marwan was successful, but the death of the 44 was beyond my control as the experts in military and police operations know better than me in carrying out my instructions.
These moves might have invited understanding from the people about President Aquino’s instructions during and after the clash between the Special Action Force troopers and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front/Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.
—ERNESTO Z. MEDINA, asiadetectives@yahoo.com