The foreign-looking combatant in the video of the aftermath of the Mamasapano clash clearly got the attention of the men who scoured the cornfields by the river that they took particular notice of his nose.
“This man has a long nose,” was the direct translation of the observation that could be heard in the eight-minute video obtained by the Inquirer.
An Inquirer source who saw the video on Tuesday translated to Tagalog the Maguindanaoan dialect spoken by the men. The cackle of a handheld radio as well as the faint sound of intermittent gunshots could be heard in the background.
The source, a government official, said that those who took the video were clearly “people of the upstream” who had a different accent from the “people from the downstream.”
Those who took the video could be heard saying “buddy” whenever the camera panned to the body of a Caucasian-looking man who died along with the members of the Special Action Force 55th Special Action Company (SAC).
“Buddy, what happened to him again?” said one of the men.
But if “buddy” was a member of 55th SAC or a foreign combatant remains unclear.—Nikko Dizon