Poe: Napeñas untruthful about US involvement in Mamasapano raid

MANILA, Philippines—Sacked Special Action Force head Getulio Napeñas was “untruthful” about the United States’ involvement in the Mamasapano operation, Sen. Grace Poe said on Thursday.

Sen. Grace Poe. FILE PHOTO

“What shocked me the most was at the very beginning he was untruthful,” said Poe, who led the Senate investigation on the incident as head of the committee on public order, when asked in an interview over ABS-CBN News Channel about Napeñas’ testimony on the US involvement on the incident.

“Because he said, we were asking him, ‘So were there Americans there? And it took a while and said yes. And then, ‘Did you speak with them? Did you coordinate?’ His initial answer was ‘Bigla na lang nandoon na e (They were suddenly already there).’ How will you believe that? That foreign … that the American was actually there because he just showed up?

“And then we said, “How many were they?” At first, three or just two? Then it became four, six … later on we found out, they were already set up in the command post with television monitoring equipment etc.,”  the senator said.

READ: Napeñas admits US hand in intelligence sharing during Mamasapano operation

Sacked SAF chief Getulio Napeñas

In a 129-page draft report, the three committees—public order; peace, unification and reconciliation, and finance—that investigated the incident found Napeñas administratively liable for grave misconduct for directly coordinating with and reporting to then suspended Philippine National Police chief Director General Alan Purisima.

The draft report prepared by Poe also found the sacked SAF head liable for the poor planning and execution of the operation as well as the failure to coordinate with the military. The report was signed by 20 senators, many of them attached  a note that they may propose amendments to it.

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Poe pointed out that there was nothing wrong with the sharing of intelligence with other countries, saying, “It’s important; it’s for the safety of our own people.”

“And I don’t think we find anything that the US was actually conducting ground combat operations, no. They were giving intelligence information, some equipment …” she said.