Cerbo gives big picture of command responsibility

MANILA, Philippines – Whether a police operation fails or succeeds, the commander of the unit will always be responsible, the Philippine National Police spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Chief Superintendent Generoso Cerbo Jr. supported President Benigno Aquino III’s statement on Monday heaping the blame on sacked Special Action Force commander Police Director Getulio Napeñas for the Mamasapano debacle.

Aquino earlier lashed at Napeñas for refusing to follow the President’s order to coordinate with the military prior to “Operation Exodus.” Aquino also refused to take responsibility for the bungled operation and passed the blame to Napeñas.

On Monday, Aquino made a detailed account of the operation before an audience of evangelical church leaders led by Bro. Eddie Villanueva and maintained that it could have had a different outcome had Napeñas aborted the mission.

“My personal take is, if I fail in the mission I led, I don’t have anybody to blame but myself,” Cerbo said in a press briefing on Tuesday.

“Do I need to put the blame on my superiors who guided us in a general and strategic way when the nitty-gritty of the operations came from me?”

Previously assigned in Maguindanao province, the PNP spokesperson was a former commanding officer of the defunct Regional Special Action Force, the strike force of now Regional Public Safety Battalion.

“In any operation, malaki ang role ng tumatayong commander that’s why when it’s successful, they are rewarded. But once it fails, you have the responsibility,” he said.

Cerbo said it’s a commander’s duty to extricate his men from the battlefield and to relay to his immediate superior the plan for the operation.

But he said he was “not talking about the Mamasapano incident” that killed 67 individuals. “It is how it is, in a military organization, even in the PNP, commanders are responsible.”