Philippines honors 44 slain commandos with day of mourning

Their 392-strong team had been deployed to hunt two “most wanted” terror suspects.

The fallen police were farewelled by grieving family members, politicians and police and military leadership at their home base, Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City Friday.

Policemen across the country wore black armbands to show their sympathy.

Delivering a eulogy for the fallen, President Benigno Aquino III made reference to his own loss as the son of an assassinated political leader, and vowed to bring the remaining target of the commandos’ mission to justice.

“Our 44 fallen heroes from our police force, the youngest at 26 and the most senior at 39 years old, pushed themselves and exerted all their effort to do what they could, not only for themselves and their families, but for our beloved country,” he said.

“They gave up their lives for the kind of peace and order that endures.”

A board of inquiry is looking into why the mission went wrong. The SAF has been criticized for not coordinating adequately with the MILF ahead of the mission.

But Benigno said in his speech that “even if the MILF and BIFF now constitute two different groups, many of them are related by blood or by affinity. Strangers cannot just enter their territory. Our troops needed to enter quietly and carefully; otherwise, their targets may have been alerted.”

The MILF issued a statement Wednesday on behalf of its chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim.

The statement reiterated the MILF’s “full commitment” to the peace process, extended sympathies to the families of the fallen police and announced its own investigation into the incident.

“In order to give meaning to their deaths, we must resolve not to let something like this happen again,” read the statement.

CNN