Poe urged to inhibit self in Mamasapano probe reopening

Grace Poe FACEBOOK PHOTO

Senator Grace Poe should voluntarily inhibit herself from hearing the Mamasapano reinvestigation out of delicadeza.

The “unsolicited friendly advice” came from Liberal Party spokesperson and Akbayan Partylist Rep. Barry Gutierrez, who said that Poe should let other senators, especially those not running in the elections, lead the Mamasapano hearing to avoid the incident from being used to boost her election campaign.

“Pero sa amin naman suggestion lang ito, kumbaga, unsolicited friendly advice para ‘wag magamit sa pulitika ‘yung Mamasapano. Pero kung talagang pipilitin siya ‘yun, eh siguro konsensya na lang niya ang kanyang harapin,” Gutierrez said in an interview on Friday at the LP headquarters in Quezon City.

As the head of the Senate committee on public order, Poe will supposedly lead the reopening of the hearing on the bloody clash between elite police commandos and armed Moro forces that killed more than 60 people in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, on January 25 last year.

The Senate will reconvene the hearing on the first anniversary of the debacle.

In her earlier interviews, Poe vowed not take advantage of the Senate probe for politics.

But Gutierrez, skeptic about Poe’s statement, said: “Puwede mo naman sabihin ‘yun, pero ‘pag ikaw na ‘yung nakaupo doon, siyempre ang hirap na mag-make ng distinction between ‘yung papel mo bilang imbestigador at ‘yung papel mo bilang taong kumakandidato.”

(It’s easy to say that, but once seated there, it’s going to be hard making a distinction between your task as an investigator and your role as a candidate.)

The LP, even President Aquino, said politics was behind the reopening of the Mamasapano probe, aiming to weaken the campaign of its standard-bearer Mar Roxas, who happened to be the Interior and Local Government secretary at the time of the incident.

Roxas was among the top officials who were kept in the dark on the planning of the high-risk mission named “Oplan Exodus.”