Suspended PNP chief Gen. Alan Purisima
"No information on that." This was the cryptic response of Presidential Communications Operations Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. to reports that swirled Thursday that President Aquino has accepted the resignation of suspended PNP chief Gen. Alan Purisima, whose shadowy role in the Mamasapano mission by police commandos has sparked controversy.
Supposedly, President Aquino told a dozen Cabinet members gathered for a meeting at the Palace that he had accepted the resignation of Purisima, who is being pressed to explain his reported role as backroom commander of the police commandos mission to apprehend international terrorist Zulkifli binHir alias Marwan last Jan. 25. But Coloma said there was no emergency meeting held Thursday, only an ordinary meeting called by the Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras.
On Wednesday, the relieved Special Action Forces (SAF) chief, Getulio Napenas, told media that Purisima advised him to inform the acting PNP chief, Gen. Leonardo Espina, of the mission to get Marwan only when they hit the ground in Mamasapano, Maguindanao - a matter blamed for the terrible miscoordination between the SAF and the main PNP brass, and between the police and the military, which had a detachment near Mamasapano.
While the commandos succeeded in neutralizing Marwan, 44 of them died in a 10-hour firefight with Moro rebels. This raised questions about why Purisima was allowed to be on top of a sensitive mission in a cease-fire area, even when he was suspended.
Officers from the Armed Forces and the police have been trading blame since the Jan. 25 mission, with the AFP saying they could not help extricate the commandos in a timely manner because they were kept in the dark about it - until it was too late.
The spokesman for political affairs of the Office of the Vice President fueled the speculations about Purisima's resignation even more. Atty. Rico Quicho issued this short statement: "Resignation should not be used as a subterfuge for the truth in the bloody encounter in Mamasapano. Purisima must still face the investigation in order to shed light on what was actually his participation in the operation that befell 44 members of SAF."
At a briefing late Thursday afternoon, Coloma told reporters there was no Cabinet cluster meeting on Thursday, and that Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras had called the meeting. But, he added, it wasn't an emergency meeting.
At least eight investigating panels have been formed in the aftermath of the Jan. 25 "slaughter" of the commandos, with the suspended Purisima's real role repeatedly cited as a key issue.
President Aquino himself is under fire after he said in an address to the nation last Jan. 28 that Purisima had provided him intelligence about the presence of Marwan in Mindanao way back in May 2014,, and had guided him through the jargon.
He stopped short of admitting, though, that he allowed Purisima to continue to play a role in actually carrying out the Jan. 25 mission even when the PNP chief was already suspended since December. Aquino said he told Napenas, who was relieved after the deaths of the commandos, to coordinate with the proper police and military hierarchies.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/104477/purisima-resignation-story-swirls-but-coloma-insists-theres-no-info-on-that
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