Manila: The vice-president of the Philippines has asked a suspended police chief to answer allegations that he was responsible for a police operation in which 44 officers, four rebels, and two civilians died last Saturday.

A unit of the police’s elite Special Action Forces (SAF) had set out to arrest an Al Qaida linked Islamist in the south of the country, and were ambushed.

“Suspended Philippine National Police Chief Director-General Alan Purisima, you should speak up,” Vice-President Jejomar Binay said, adding, “It’s hard to be pinpointed as being responsible for what happened at Mamasapano [town] in Maguindanao [last Saturday].”

“A leader like you will know how to accept responsibilities,” Binay said, adding, “Those who are talking now [about the incident and why it happened] keep pointing at you [Purisima, as the one behind the tragic police operation)].”

“When I was mayor of Makati City [before I became a vice president in 2010], I always knew what was happening and what my people were doing,” Binay said.

The vice-president, however, did not categorically ask Purisima if President Benigno Aquino gave his approval to the risky operation, as some have claimed.

“That’s hearsay,” police deputy spokesperson Senior Superintendent Robert Po said last January 28 when asked about the alleged alliance of Aquino and Purisima in the covert police operation.

“It was a tragedy in the making. The president was aware of the Marwan covert operation. Purisima reported directly to him,” a general who requested for anonymity told the Manila Standard, a local daily.

The SAF operation of the was to serve warrants of arrest to Zulkifli Bin Hir, also known as Marwan — a Malaysian national and high level leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian conduit of the Al Qaida terror network — and Basit Usman, a bomb expert of the Abu Sayyaf Group.

Abu Sayyaf helped to hide Zulkifli in the southern Philippines after the twin-bombings that killed 202 people in Bali, Indonesia in 2002.

“The president went to Zamboanga before the (SAF) troops’ jump off to Mamasapano, in Maguindanao so that he would be in the vicinity when Zulkifli and Osman are captured,” the general claimed.

“The president was there as he expected the turnover of Zulkifli to the Philippine government. Such was the plan,” claimed the general who allegedly participated in planning the tragic operation.

Although suspended from his job, Purisima monitored the operation from his residence at the police headquarters of Camp Crame in suburban Quezon City. “Purisima would then report either to Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa or directly to the president,” the general claimed.

“All the SAF men involved (in the operation), including the 44 who perished, the 12 who were seriously wounded, and a survivor, were all trusted men of Purisima,” the general said.

Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel Roxas, in charge of the NationalPolice Commission, had no knowledge of the plan.

“Why was I not informed? Why was I kept in the dark? Who was behind this operation?” the general quoted Roxas as saying during a command conference after the incident in the southern Philippines.

Acting head of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Deputy Director Gerardo Espina also said he was not informed about the SAF police operation.