Makati Business Club rails politicians taking advantage of Mamasapano debacle

MBC chairman Ramon del Rosario. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – The Mamasapano incident and the ensuing debates on the peace process is “another reason to be very discriminating about our choice of leader in 2016,” Makati Business Club (MBC) chairman Ramon Del Rosario Jr. said Tuesday.

“Political manipulation must not be allowed to take advantage of legitimate emotion and grief to the point that reason will be discarded and all the gains we have made will be undone,” he further said of the Mamasapano debacle, which left 44 policemen, 18 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters and at least five civilians dead.

The clash, which was dubbed a “misencounter” between the Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) and the MILF and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), has put in jeopardy the ongoing peace process in Mindanao.

Del Rosario, who spoke at a business forum in Makati Shangri-La Hotel, reiterated a joint statement in support of the Bangsamoro Peace Process released a week ago by the MBC, the Cagayan de Oro Chamber of Commerce and Industry Foundation Inc., Employers Confederation of the Philippines, Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, Management Association of the Philippines, and the Philippine Business for Social Progress.

Without naming people, he said “certain groups and individuals” not only called for an all-out-war in Mindanao but also branded Filipino Muslims “terrorists.”

While he slammed the said individuals for questioning the sincerity of the peace negotiators and demanding the resignation of President Benigno Aquino III, he said the President is still expected to explain himself.

With both the Senate and the House of Representatives conducting hearings on the issue, the public is still waiting for Aquino’s side of the story. The President has given public speeches on the matter but has refrained from detailing his knowledge of the operation and the role of then suspended PNP chief Alan Purisima.

“As these inquiries are unlikely to fully satisfy the public, it is likely that President Aquino, as our Commander in Chief, will have no other recourse but to himself give the Filipino people a full accounting of the incident that lets all the chips fall where they may,” Del Rosario said in a transcript released to media.

“Indeed, only with a full and satisfactory accounting will our common pursuit of justice be possible, and only when justice is satisfied can the peace process move forward,” he explained.

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