Camp Aguinaldo, Sept. 10, 2001 - A fact-finding body on the Lamitan siege last June 2 has directly put the blame of the bungled military operation against the Abu Sayyaf on the "grandstanding" of Gen. Diomedio Villanueva, AFP chief of staff.

An Army Inspector General's Office report was leaked yesterday by a ranking military officer out of disgust over the allegations of an AFP-Abu Sayyaf collusion.

"He (Villanueva) apparently wanted to project a `hands-on' image (in issuing orders directly to the battalion commander.) Unfortunately, the basis of that order was wrong intelligence information which he took hook, line and sinker," the unidentified official said.

"It (alleged collusion) is damaging the (military) institution. Is this the price to pay just to protect the name of one general (Villanueva)?" the official said.

According to a report prepared by Brig. Gen. Reynaldo Rivera, then Army inspector general, Villanueva, who was at the 103rd Brigade headquarters in Isabela, Basilan, instructed Maj. Daniel Lucero, 16th Infantry Battalion commander, to order his troops to proceed to Isabela, Basilan where the Abu Sayyaf group was supposedly massing its forces.

Villanueva ordered Lucero to "maintain contact" with the bandits whom Lucero and his men encountered in Tuburan on June 1 because the Lamitan siege, Villanueva claimed, could just be a "diversionary tactic."

Unknown to Villanueva, the group of bandits encountered by Lucero's men was the group that occupied the Jose Torres Hospital and St. Peter's Church.

Villanueva's call rescinded an order by Col. Jovenal Narcise, 103rd Brigade chief, for Lucero to shift his forces from Tuburan to Lamitan town about 10 minutes earlier.

The report, which was sent to Villanueva on July 10, said that Narcise then "had no option but to utilize available forces on hand and wait for the reinforcement (counter-ter-rorists) as committed by higher headquarters which was to arrive in two hours."

However, the reinforce-ments arrived at around 9 p.m. or three-and-a-half hours after the Abu bandits had escaped towards the east and south wings of the hospital with the hostages.

The report said that Villanueva made several calls to the heads of the 103rd Brigade and to the 18th Infantry Battalion when he should have been dealing either with the heads of the Southern Command and 1st Infantry Division.

Rivera said Narcise's order for Lucero to shift his forces from Tuburan to Lamitan was a "better course of action" to take than sending counter-terrorist forces and Marines.

"First: His units were more familiar with the area than the AFP counter-terrorist force since it was their AOR (area of responsibility).

"Second: CO, 18th IB (Lucero) stated that they could have arrived in Lamitan from Tuburan area within two hours much earlier than the nine hours of the counter-terrorist force.

"Third: The enemy forces being pursued at Tuburan was the group that was in Lamitan, hence, was not a diversionary force."

Rivera said that Villanueva also issued direct instructions to Capt. Hubert Acierto, 103rd Brigade's concurrent intelligence and operations officer, to proceed to Lamitan from Isabela City.

"He (Acierto) was given specific instruction (by Vil-lanueva) to concentrate all forces in Tuburan, Basilan ... (Acierto) was also informed by CSAFP (Villanueva) that 101B, 551B, and 321B would be shifted to Tuburan, Basilan from Lan-tawan, Basilan," Rivera said.

Sources said Villanueva's move was deemed as a "violation of the unity of command" which, in effect, bypassed the area, division and brigade commanders on the ground.

The report also said that when a team of Scout Rangers consisting of five officers and 100 soldiers were sent to Lamitan as reinforcements, they were unequipped and unaware of the situation.

It said the Rangers, who were fresh from training in Fort Bonifacio, were first transported without firearms and subsistence allowances.

Upon reaching Zamboanga, not all of the Rangers were issued firearms and at least 15 soldiers were fielded unarmed in Lamitan, the report added.

It said that when the Rangers arrived in Lamitan, they were met by a "stay behind" force which refused to coordinate and acknowledge the authority of Capt. Ruben Guinolbay, the Rangers' commanding officer.

The report also corroborated a statement by Maj. Eliseo Campued, the highest ranking officer at the scene of Lamitan incident, that the troops in Lamitan had no reliable communications system since only four or five radio transceivers were provided for the operation.

The inspector general's report has been kept under wraps since Rivera was re-assigned to oversee the Asian rifle meet, the source said. Rivera has since been replaced by Brig. Gen. Florencio Mag-laya.

Sen. Noli de Castro accused a military panel investigating the Lamitan siege of a cover-up.

He said a report by the AFP Inspector General submitted to the Senate was sanitized.

After the third round of a Senate inquiry by the com-mittees on national defense and security and human rights, De Castro and other senators were convinced that the military allowed the bandits to escape in exchange for millions of pesos.

De Castro said the testi-monies of Lamitan residents provided the missing links and explained the lapses in the report of the military inspector general.

"After hearing the tes-timonies of Fr. (Cirilo) Nacorda's witnesses, which were more vivid and detailed, it is simply illogical to accept the military's version as gospel truth," he said.

De Castro said that the admission by the military of operational lapses only served as a smokescreen to the more serious accusations of Nacorda.

Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr., said the while the government has maintained a "no-ransom policy", money still changed hands and urged court martial proceedings.

But Rigoberto Tiglao, presidential spokesman, said committing tactical errors during actual military opera-tions is not a ground for court martial.

He said that even charges of an alleged collusion between the military and the Abu Sayyaf group had yet to be proven. (Malaya)