Get the facts first
THAT phrase “chain of command” came up again in the report of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Board of Inquiry (BOI) released last Friday. It said the President violated the chain of command in the Mamasapano incident in which 44 SAF commandos were killed.
In the recent hearings of the Senate on the incident, some officials notably the resigned PNP chief Director General Alan Purisima – had claimed that “chain of command” is a military term and does not apply to a civilian organization like the PNP. But the fact is there is such a chain of command in the PNP and in all other organizations. It may be called by another name, like “line of authority.” It establishes the procedure with which the organization operates. Ignore this line of authority or violate it and all sorts of operational problems arise – as they did in the Mamasapano case.
In the planning for Mamasapano, the President met with the suspended PNP chief, Purisima – instead of the acting chief, Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina – and with the SAF chief, Director Getulio Napenas. The President claimed later that Napenas fooled him – “Binola niya ako.” If the chain of command had been in place, there would have been someone between the two. There would have been Espina, who could have filtered out any miscommunication – o “bola,” if any -- from Napenas.
Last Saturday, the Malacañang spokesman rejected the BOI Report finding that the President violated the chain of command, insisting that the President can issue direct orders to any official in the government. The spokesman also said the President had issued direct orders to Purisima to coordinate with Espina. If so, it would seem there was indeed a violation of the established line of authority, as the President’s orders apparently never reached Espina.
The BOI Report undoubtedly has its share of errors and we can expect various other sectors to question some of its findings, but it is a welcome addition to the overall effort to get to the bottom of the unfortunate Mamasapano incident. We look forward to the reports from Congress, particularly that of the Senate Committee on Public Order led by Sen. Grace Poe. She has promised that the Senate Report will provide answers to many questions now being asked.
And there are many such unanswered questions. Among them:
Could the SAF death toll have been considerably reduced if rescue efforts by the military had come earlier?
Was there an order to “stand down” or an order for a “best effort” to help the trapped SAF 44, not a “rescue at all cost”?
Was the Mamasapano operation a violation of the government ceasefire with the MILF, as MILF Chairman Ebrahim Murad claims?
It had been hoped that seven weeks after the January 25 incident, all issues would have been settled by now, but seems the case refuses to die, largely because some officials have not been as forthright as they should. It is important that the facts be first laid out and an important one is the BOI finding that the PNP chain of command – or line of authority, as some may prefer to call it – was not followed. The assignment of responsibility or blame, if any, can come later.