A search for answers, says Enrile

Senator Juan Ponce Enrile. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/EDWIN BACASMAS

SEN. JUAN Ponce Enrile on Tuesday said his move to reopen the investigation into the Mamasapano massacre was to “search for answers” and not because he had a grudge against President Aquino or had any political motives.

“I am no errand boy of anybody,” Enrile, the Senate majority leader, said in a phone patch interview with Senate reporters.

But he admitted in a later radio interview that the “center of [his] questioning” will be the “participation of the President” in the Jan. 25, 2015, police operation that resulted in the brutal killing of 44 Special Action Force troops by groups of Muslim rebels in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.

The Senate committee on public order headed by Sen. Grace Poe, has agreed to Enrile’s request and will reopen its investigation into Mamasapano on Jan. 25, the first anniversary of the massacre.

The senator has said that he has new information on the incident which he had apparently obtained from the survivors of the Mamasapano operation who happened to be confined at the Philippine National Police General Hospital in Camp Crame at the same time as Enrile. The senator was on hospital arrest in connection with the pork barrel plunder case against him but was released on bail in August.

Enrile said he has invited four current and former Cabinet secretaries and other officials and main actors in the incident. But he has not summoned Mr. Aquino although he said the President was welcome to attend.

Enrile said he had no grudge against the President, contrary to what the latter had said last week.

‘Objective investigation’

“My only motivation is to ask the role of the President in the incident,” Enrile said.

“This will be an objective investigation. I’m not going to be personal about it. I’m going to search for answers to questions I will present,” he said.

Enrile said it was important to find out the actions, decisions and preparations made by Mr. Aquino on that fateful day since he was involved and had designated people for the operations.

He said he will ask Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. where the President was on the day of the massacre as the Palace was “quiet” that day and there was no news of the incident for three days.

“Did we have a government or where they sleeping on that biggest incident that struck and thumped the country?” he said.

Malacañang Tuesday said the government has always been “open and forthright” about Mamasapano, citing the “many inquiries conducted and completed” by various government entities, including the PNP, the Senate, the House, the Commission on Human Rights and the Office of the Ombudsman.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Party vice-presidential candidate Leni Robredo said the prudent thing for Poe and Sen. Bongbong Marcos to do should be to inhibit themselves from participating in the reopened Mamasapano investigation.

She said there was no need to reopen the investigation as a lot of time has elapsed and lawmakers and other institutions had already spent a lot of effort into getting to the bottom of Mamasapano.