Enrile asks US about $5-M bounty vs Marwan

Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile yesterday challenged United States officials to explain the extent of their participation in the Mamasapano operation and why the US has gone as far as to offer US$5-milion reward for the capture of an infamous terrorist hiding in the Philippines?

Enrile made the statement as he rebuffed US Ambassador Philip Goldberg’s intimations sensitive matters like the tragic police operations in Mamasapano, Maguindanao that led to the deaths of the 44 Special Action Force (SAF) troopers should not be discussed publicly.

“What is sensitive about the police operation? I ask the great ambassador of the US. (Why is) he saying enemies of the state may also be watching? We have the host country for him. Why does he talk as if this is the US?” Enrile said in a weekly forum at the Senate.

The minority leader, who called for the reopening of the Mamasapano investigation, said the US should first answer why they put up a US$5-million reward for the capture of Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli Bin Hir also known as “Marwan”, whom the SAF troopers were able to neutralize during the bloody incident in Jan. 25 last year.

“And why did they not use their elite troops instead of training these officers to become pawns and to be dead meats, to capture dead or alive a quarry of the US?” he said.

Enrile, during the hearing of the Senate public order hearing, broached up the possibility several provisions of the Philippines-US Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) may have been violated in the supposed counter-terrorism activity, considering they lent tactical and intelligence support to the Philippine National Police (PNP) in what is considered a police operation.

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