Philippine National Police Director-General Ricardo Marquez on Wednesday highlighted the loopholes in Oplan Exodus or the ill-fated mission aimed at neutralizing high-profile terror suspect Zulkifli Bin Hir alias Marwan at Wednesday's reopening of the Mamasapano incident of 2015.
“There was actually no planning team. The plan was defective from the very beginning because of following: poor analysis of the area of operation; unrealistic assumptions; poor intelligence estimate; absence of abort criteria; lack of flexibility on the concept of operation; the application of the 'time on target' manner of coordination was inappropriate; and the absences of prior coordination,” Marquez said.
Marquez was reiterating the findings of the PNP Board of Inquiry (BOI) that conducted an investigation into the Mamasapano incident, the January 25, 2015 encounter between policemen from the PNP Special Action Force (SAF) and several armed groups that included fighters from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and its splinter group the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).
Marquez, who was the PNP's director for operations at the time the Mamasapano incident took place, said that proof of the lack of proper planning for the operation was the absence of written contingency measures for unexpected turn of events.
Marquez, during the Senate hearing, reiterated that he too was kept out of the loop in the planning and execution of Oplan Exodus which was purportedly designed by then suspended PNP chief Alan Purisima.
“There was no indication that a real contigency planning was done. In a high-risk operation, like Exodus, I think that a real contigency planning should have been done,” Marquez said.
Marquez said the high number of fatalities, which included 44 elite SAF commandos, could have been prevented if only SAF commander, then police director Getulio Napeñas, sought some inputs from the higher ups, especially from officials in the PNP National Headquarters (NHQ) .
“We also surmise, that for a high-risk operation like Exodus, we felt that the National Headquarters, the director and staff of NHQ could have contributed into the thoroughness of the plan,” Marquez said.
“We could have provided some strategic inputs in so far as the primacy of the peace process is concerned. Because the BOI report was very clear in saying that the peace process was never discussed during the whole planning process,” Marquez added.
Marquez said that as the then head of the PNP Directorate for Operations, he could have “insisted” on conducting a full-scale contigency planning for Oplan Exodus.
“As a Director for Operations, I could have insisted the conduct of a full-scale contingency planning. When I say full-scale contigency planning, scenarios should be debated, actions plans should be listed, resources needed should be made available on the ground and a mechanism for decision-making should been put in place,” Marquez said, adding that such type of police contingency planning was observed during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) event held in Manila in November last year.
'I beg to disagree'
Napeñas, however, was quick to dispute Marquez' allegation that no proper planning was done in Oplan Exodus.
“We have contingency plans, we have abort criteria. Nakalagay po iyan during the briefing presentation and deliberation,” Napeñas said, showing a copy of his Oplan Exodus briefing paper.
“I beg to disagree that there was no mission planning team...I would like also to disagree that there was no contingency and there was no abort criteria, there were,” Napeñas said.
Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile also came to Napeñas' rescue, pointing out that Oplan Exodus was no ordinary operation that followed the normal chain of command.
It has earlier been established that then acting PNP chief Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina and then Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II were not informed about the operation.
“If it is a normal procedure that goes into a command system then you can put your inputs. But this operation was exceptional, it was compartmented by the President (Benigno Aquino) himself,” Enrile said.
“I believe that the director of SAF could ask for inputs, I don't think that the President prevented him from asking inputs from asking other officers in developing that plan,” Marquez responded.
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/552877/news/nation/mamasapano-mission-defective-from-the-very-beginning-pnp-chief
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