Rescue of SAF troops losing hope recounted

‘Battle-stressed’

“The first thing they said to me was: ‘It’s good to see you, Sir. We thought this was where we would die,’” Bannoya said.

“I think our [arrival] lifted their spirits,” he said.

“They were battle-stressed. [During the long time] they spent there, they had no food or water. There were wounded among them, many dead,” Bannoya said.

At first, he said, the most senior SAF officer could not even give an accurate count of the casualties.

“Some of those they counted dead were actually just wounded,” he said.

The final count was eight dead, 11 wounded, 17 uninjured, he said.

Military ‘not remiss’

Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano, who presented Mateo, Jaranilla and two other Army officers to the investigative committee, said the accounts of the soldiers showed at least one thing: “The Armed Forces of the Philippines was not remiss in helping out the SAF. Otherwise, more than 44 of them would have died.”

The US-trained 84th SAC, also called Seaborne, was the strike force that infiltrated into Moro rebel-controlled Mamasapano early on Jan. 25 to get Marwan and the two other terrorists.

But the mission went wrong when an explosive device went off in Marwan’s hut in Pidsandawan, waking up armed groups in the community who poured out of their huts and attacked the withdrawing commandos.

Later, fighting would also erupt between MILF rebels and commandos from the 55th SAC, the blocking force for the 84th, in nearby Tukanalipao village. Most of the 44 dead on the SAF side belonged to the 55th.