Rody: Noy to be cleared on SAF 44
‘Usurpation charge silly, doomed to fail’
The cases to be filed against former president Benigno Aquino III over the Mamasapano clash in 2015 are doomed to fail, President Duterte said yesterday.
Duterte brushed aside the charges of graft and usurpation of authority to be filed in court by the Office of the Ombudsman.
“You know, charging Aquino for that (is) silly. Actually, my term there, it’s a silly charge,” Duterte told reporters at Malacañang. “They are there to ensure its failure.”
Duterte said as commander-inchief of the armed forces, he can order anyone to help in a security or law enforcement operation.
“The police is a civilian entity under the DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government). Correct? Yes. But he is also the chief of the executive department… If I order an operation and from my mouth I would say, ‘Go there and fight or arrest this person or maintain order,’ that by itself is like the commander-in-chief, chief executive,” the President said. “You cannot call it usurpation
On a Friday jolted by news that he was facing criminal charges for the deaths of 44 members of the police Special Action Force in Mamasapano two years ago, former president Benigno Aquino III said he was also jolted by an avalanche of unexpected support from friends and strangers alike.
“Hindi ka nag-iisa (You are not alone),” several people texted him in support on what could have been a Good Friday in his life.
“Last Friday I think my phone nearly suffered a significant drain of the battery responding to everybody,” Aquino told The STAR in an exclusive interview at 25 Times St., where his parents, democracy icons former president Corazon Aquino and former senator Benigno Aquino Jr., once lived.
“I received expressions of support even from people I don’t know, people who were supportive of my father and my mother. No two messages were exactly the same. They conveyed it to people they knew in order to get it to me,” he added.
His sisters and close friends also trooped to Times, where Aquino is kept company by a loyal German shepherd named Apollo, to give him moral support.
“They were concerned. I was concerned. But I told them, ‘If there is room for the truth to come out, we will be OK,’” he told The STAR.
“There is that famous saying, ‘Hindi ka nag-iisa,’” he said, referring to the slogan coined by opposition leaders to show their support for the cause of Aquino Jr. even after his death in 1983.
“I am fortunate that I am able to hear this being told to me while I am still alive,” he added.
Asked how his parents would have faced the trials he is facing now with the charges of graft and usurpation of authority connected to the Mamasapano deaths, Aquino replied, “They would have faced it head on.”
He said he would not be truthful if he said he felt no fear at all regarding the criminal charges against him.
But he said he did his best under the circumstances, and if he has to stand trial, he sees it as an opportunity to clear his name. He will walk inside the court with head unbowed.
He also sees a lesson there for future leaders: “No matter how well intentioned you are, there will always be those you did not please.”
At the end of the day, he finds strength in his faith. “I hope for the best, but expect the worst. I think that’s a healthy attitude.”