Bam misses the point: Apology not just admission of guilt

I write in reaction to the news item titled “Apology a trap—Bam Aquino” (Front Page, 3/24/15), which reported the senator’s position on the clamor for his cousin, President Aquino, to apologize for the botched operations in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, which cost the lives of 64 Filipinos.

Senator Aquino misses the point: The public demands an apology. More than a gambit for the next elections as the senator emphasized, an apology is an admission of one’s guilt and readiness to accept the ramifications of his decisions. The senator and his cousin seem to think it is beneath their lofty stature to say they are sorry.

In the past eight weeks, we cringed as President Aquino insulted the bereaved SAF families with video game references. We were disgusted as he tripped all over himself lying about the participation of his best chum, suspended Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima, in Oplan Exodus. We saw through the whitewash the United States’ role and President Aquino’s involvement in cooking up and executing the flawed operation to capture international terrorists.

After that, we waited in vain for a trace of remorse after he had been the object of rebuke of the board of inquiry and Senate investigation reports.

Beyond the prospects for the 2016 elections, President Aquino owes most of all the Moro people an apology. They are after all getting the short end of the stick of his military adventurism. The President consciously disregarded and disrespected the peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the established protocols when he kept the MILF out of the loop in a secret counterterrorism operation conducted inside MILF territory. His mistrust and betrayal of his “peace partners” cost the lives of the 44 Special Action Force commandos, 17 Moro rebels and three civilians.

Today, his all-out war, his retaliatory campaign against the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, has displaced 120,000 Moro people. President Aquino has shown no mercy and compassion for the plight of the evacuees, majority of whom are women and children. Relief and basic services from concerned government agencies, like the Department of Social Welfare and Development, for many evacuees who took shelter in the homes of friends or relatives, are meager, if there is any at all.

Yet, despite all of these, President Aquino remains unapologetic, unaccepting of his failure in leadership, and arrogant to the point of indecency in the aftermath of the Mamasapano debacle. Apparently it is not in the nature of hacenderos to apologize to the ordinary peasant; both of these Aquinos do not comprehend the value of owning up to one’s own mistakes and being punished for it fittingly.

The last days of President Aquino in Malacañang is too long for us to just wait out. He has proven himself to be unfit as president, an obedient stooge of the United States, and ultimately liable for the Mamasapano debacle. President Aquino must apologize and resign, now.

—WINDY CARBONEL, spokesperson, Tunay na Alyansa ng Bayan Alay sa Katutubo (Tabak), [email protected]