Sacked SAF Chief Getulio Napeñas. INQUIRER PHOTO/RAFFY LERMA
Start acting like a true officer and gentleman.
That was the advice of a Liberal Party lawmaker to the sacked commander of the Special Action Force (SAF), Getulio Napeñas, who he said has shown little remorse in the aftermath of the Jan. 25 Mamasapano debacle.
“The Mamasapano operation is his mess. He should stop dragging other people into this because he alone had full control of the operation. He planned the operation and he executed it. Even the people who were involved in the operation were handpicked by him,” Western Samar Representative Mel Senen Sarmiento said.
READ: Bloody Mamasapano raid was Aquino’s fault, says Napeñas camp
In a statement, the LP secretary general said Napeñas was “solely responsible” for bungling the Mamasapano raid that left more than 60 people dead, 44 of them SAF commandos, in an operation to hunt down two international terrorists.
“General Napeñas should man up and start acting like a true SAF commando. Blaming other people for your own mistake is definitely not one of the characters of a true SAF officer,” Sarmiento said.
“Being the one who planned and executed the Oplan Exodus, Napeñas must accept responsibility. His shortcomings in planning the operation proved fatal and he has nobody to blame but himself. His failure to obey the directives of his commander in chief is the proximate cause of the death of the 44 SAF members,” he said.
Sarmiento said it was obvious that the SAF commander got too “greedy” to grab all the credit in the Mamasapano operation and this was the reason he refused to obey a direct order by President Benigno Aquino III for him to coordinate his efforts to his superiors and to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
READ: Napeñas turned the Mamasapano raid into a ‘mission impossible’ – Aquino
“The unquestioned narration of facts stated that the SAF already killed their target at 4:15 a.m., a fact made known to Napeñas 15 minutes later. What prevented Napeñas from informing right away the AFP of the mission? Was he driven by greed? The fact that he coordinated only with the AFP at around 5:30am or an hour after killing Marwan showed that desperation to extract his men being assaulted brought him back to his senses,” Sarmiento said.
The lawmaker said Napeñas also opted to report the progress of his operation to then PNP chief Alan Purisima, who was under suspension at the time, despite the absence of a formal directive from the President.
READ: Napeñas: Purisima told me not to tell Roxas, Espina of SAF operation
“He just assumed that it was okay for him to get his orders from General Purisima for the simple reason that he is a friend of the president. That already shows his lack of prudence in dealing with operations as sensitive as Oplan Exodus,” Sarmiento said.