Liberal Party spokesperson and Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice. Screengrab from INQUIRER.net video
THE spokesperson of the Liberal Party doubts that sacked Special Action Force chief and senatorial aspirant Getulio Napeñas would make a “credible” witness if he would testify in the new Mamasapano inquiry.
LP spokesperson and Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice even described Napeñas as “a polluted source.”
This is because Napeñas is already associated with Vice President Jejomar, the opposition candidate for president, Erice said.
Asked if a no holds barred hearing worries the LP now that Napeñas, who is running under Binay’s coalition, has retired from police service, Erice said: “Hindi eh, polluted source na siya dahil kandidato siya at na kay Binay siya.”
Erice said in an interview on Thursday that the reopening of the Senate probe into the Mamasapano massacre would sabotage the presidential bid of the ruling party’s standard-bearer, Mar Roxas, then Interior Secretary at the time of the January 25 bloody incident.
Roxas was kept out of the loop during the planning of the covert mission “Oplan Exodus.”
Expressing dismay that politicians would be using the “SAF 44” for their political agenda, Erice recalled seeing Napeñas bringing the families of the Mamasapano victims to the anti-administration rally of the Iglesia Ni Cristo on Edsa last August.
The LP stalwart claimed he saw Napeñas checked the SAF 44 families and children, who came from different provinces, into an upscale hotel in Mandaluyong City supposedly for them to join the mass protest.
“Sa katunayan, in one incident, nakita ko ‘yan eh, halos magkatabi kami sa Shangri-La Plaza diyan sa Edsa, binook niya yung mga Mamasapano relatives sa hotel. I think this was during the Iglesia ni Cristo affair. Nandoon sila. Dala-dala ‘yung mga bata, mga kamag-anak ng mga Mamasapano. Nagulat pa nga siya nung nakita niya ko eh,” he said.
Napeñas said he supports the reopening of the probe on the high-risk mission that led to the death of 44 elite police commandos in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
He said this would allow him to continue his testimonies that were interrupted during the previous hearings.
As the former SAF director, Napeñas led the planning of Exodus targeting Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli Bin Hir or “Marwan” and his Filipino protégé Abdul Basit Usman with the intelligence packet coming from then suspended Philippine National Police chief Alan Purisima. JJ