The Mourning After

By Manuel L. Quezon III

As criticism bears down on his administration in the wake of the Mamasapano clash, President Aquino faces the impossibility of extricating his personal history from the national narrative.

Read on…

Comments

  1. manuel buencamino

    Manolo has been and continuous to be a keen observer of his boss. Many times when I had the temerity to suggest that he convince his boss to do this or that, he tells me, “He won’t.” And true enough, his boss did not. And many times, to our amazement, his boss made the right call. So I’ve learned to watch things play out. Although I still hope he realizes that as a politician he has to play to the crowd once in a while – as consoler in chief or whatnot – so as to gain morepolitical capital rather than expend it because he needs as much of it as he can get to pursue his reforms against the determined opposition of every personality and group that prefers things as they are.

    • like i said sa facebook, rather painful to read. or maybe i’m just sad for manolo, and for nation.

      not all those opposed to or critical of his presidency prefer things as they are. and in this mamasapano matter, there is no way it can be said that he made the right call before, during, and after, so far. easy to romanticize his current troubles as rooted in or shaped by family history, but the way he has handled it certainly does not reflect well on family or personal history. time’s running out, as well as political capital…

      • can i know, what exactly did Aquino do wrong? the most important thing? the criticisms i’ve been reading online arent clear, and id like to hear an eloquent statement of the criticism.

        • maybe you should be reading not the criticisms then, but the reports on mamasapano, and on the hearings, etc. and the president’s actions and words in the aftermath and make up your own mind whether all of it or any of it is kapunapuna or not?

      • manuel buencamino

        Most of the anger comes with the way he handled/behaved in the aftermath of the operation. He has accepted responsibility as CIC but he will not accept responsibility for the decisions of the ground commander who, as the president pointed out, had full authority to abort the operation as soon as he saw lapses in the plan’s execution. Mali ang condolence style niya from my perspective pero what to do? But other than that, the operation was a partial success and a partial failure. Hindi sana ganun karami ang namatay pero ganun ang buhay ng sundalo, wala naman pumapasok sa ganyang trabaho expecting na malulusutan niya ang sugat o kamatayan.

        • that napenas should have aborted the operation as soon as he saw lapses… six americans were looking over his shoulder at the time, surely there was a consensus to continue. and the president was just out of the loop? that would be the better defense: i did not know what was going on (was his phone really naka-off?) and the americans would have over-ruled me anyway.

          • manuel buencamino

            Nga pala. One American ordered Gen Pangilinan to fire artillery and that led to a shouting match with the general reminding the American who was the commanding officer. Umurong yun Kano.

            So ang stereotype na utusan tayong lahat ng mga Kano ay panis na. Siguro si Napeñas pero hindi si Pangilinan. Meron pero hindi lahat.

            Medyo sophisticated na magisip ang taumbayan ngayon. Hindi na ganun kasimple yun ngayon. That’s why the BeijingMuna campaign against VFA and EDCA is not getting anywhere…it is cartoonish. Alam at tanggap nig taumbayan that practicality is the boundary of sovereignty…for us and for every other nation in the world.

  2. Pinoy did not do anything wrong before the mission was executed. Naki-alam lang si Purisma at binay pass nya ang military sop for covert operatons. As commander-in-chief, Pinoy should accept command responsibility if the official ground commander partially failed on his mission. After casualties were suffered from the mission, Pinoy should be sincere and honest as a statesman by public apology and not issuing personal justification for the mistakes committed on the ground.

  3. ricelander

    PNoy does not seem to aprreciate the nuances of an organization and its command structure. The Rizal Park tragedy for one is partly a result of a fractured DILG organizational structure, the PNP being informally placed under Puno who in turn was reporting directly to the President. The result was DILG chief Robredo could not act with dispatch for having no clear authority over the police force. Neither could Puno then because his command over the PNP was vague and informal. Somebody must have had a clear mandate to act and command the elements but who had that?

    Same with this now. Napeñas, who is now bearing the brunt of the President’s fingerpointing, must have been a thoroughly confused fellow. He could have said, but Sir you are under suspension, sa iyo ba ako magre-report?

    Vagueness promote confusion, confusion breeds chaos…