Manila: One of the most senior Philippine police officers has been dismissed over an incident that left 50 people dead on Sunday.
The head of the Police’s elite Special Action Forces (SAF), Getulio Pascua Napenas, was dismissed amid investigations of the encounter involving police officers, rebels from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the splinter Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) group in the southern Philippines over the weekend.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas said 44 SAF officers, four MILF leaders, and two civilians died in Sunday’s clash in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
MILF forged pro-autonomy peace settlement with the Philippine government in 2014.
SAF deputy, Chief Superintendent Noli Talino was assigned as SAF officer-in-charge, Roxas said.
Members of the SAF were assigned to serve warrants for the arrest for Zulkifli Bin Hair, also known as Marwan, a Malaysian bombmaker and member of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian conduit of the Al Qaida, who has been living in the southern Philippines with the help of the Abu Sayyaf Group since 2002.
They also had order to arrest Abu Sayyaf bomb expert Usman Basit, Roxas said.
Various authorities called for the confirmation of SAF’s report that Zulkifli was “neutralised” at 2am on Sunday, and that Basit had escaped during the exchange.
The SAF report also claimed the authorities could not retrieve Zulkifli’s body because of intensified clashes.
In 2012, the military claimed that Zulkifli was killed in clashes in the south. The US State department has placed $5 million (Dh18 million) price on Zulkifli’s head, and $1 million for Basit’s arrest.
'Misencounter'
Narrating how the "misencounter" began, Mohagher Iqbal, MILF’s chief negotiator during peace talks with the Philippine government from 1997 to 2014, said SAF forces entered the lair of the BIFF, near an area controlled by the MILF, without coordinating with the MILF -- a process agreed upon in the peace settlement between the Philippine government and the MILF that was signed in March 2014.
SAF members fired at MILF fighters, which prompted BIFF to defend the MILF, Iqbal said.
The encounter involved several groups, confirmed Miriam Coronal-Ferrer, chief negotiator of the Philippine government.
TV reports showed cadaver bags being transported by military vans from the scene of the clashes to a military camp in the south.
Senators react
Meanwhile, Senator Grace Poe vowed to file a resolution for an inquiry into the incident.
Several senators withdrew their support for the passage of a proposed bill that will implement provisions of the Philippine government-MILF peace settlement that called for sharing of taxes between national and local governments; enhanced self-rule; and expansion of an existing autonomous region with six towns and 600 Muslim-dominated villages.
“I’m withdrawing my co-authorship of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL). I seriously doubt of the peace agreement will ever survive after the incident in Mamasapano,” said Senate Majority Leader Alan Cayetano.
The MILF should explain why the SAF members were shot to death, not arrested and tied down, said Sen. Ferdinand Marcos, who temporarily stopped hearings for the passage of the proposed BBL.
“It is very difficult to legislate a peace process when one party is still at war,” explained Marcos.
Earlier, senators and congressmen vowed to pass the BBL to allow a plebiscite in October on the provisions of the executive agreement forged by the Philippine government and the MILF.
Congressional committees have started to tackle the constitutionality of the provisions of the proposed BBL.
The Philippine government and the MILF started holding peace talks in 1997. That was after the Philippine government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) forged a second pro-autonomy peace settlement in 1996.
The Philippine government and the MNLF forged their first pro-autonomy peace settlement in Libya in 1976. As a result, the MILF became a faction of the MNLF in 1978.
Before the split, the MNLF waged a separatist war that killed 150,000 in the south in the early 70s.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has been assisting the Philippine government in its peace initiatives with the two major Filipino-Muslim rebel groups.
There are five million estimated Filipino-Muslims who have been living uneasily in a growing Christian community in the south.
The existing Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) which was established by a referendum for autonomy in 1989, and a second plebiscite in 2001, has five provinces and one city.
The proposed expansion of ARMM was based on the votes in 2001 of residents in six towns and 800 villages adjacent to the ARMM.
