Repudiate those who exploit the OPML to relentlessly malign the Party!
�Ka Basil

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The following article is drawn from the deathbed statement of Comrade Mabini Permalu Fabon, better known as Ka Basil in Southern Tagalog. He had been gravely ill for two days when he wrote this statement. Despite his sufferings, he persisted on writing and sending it to Ang Bayan to respond to the traitors who were exploiting errors which had already been rectified in their relentless bid to malign the Party. On February 6, after six days of suffering from a serious ailment, he passed away and was proclaimed a hero of the Philippine revolution.

Ka Basil began his statement by directly naming the criminal ringleaders of Oplan Missing Link (OPML), the baseless and hysterical witch hunt within the Party in Southern Tagalog that took place in 1988. The principal ringleader was the then regional committee secretary Miel Lau-renaria (also known as Tibs or Amanda). Ka Basil recalled Laurenaria's fits of irrationality that he witnessed. "She allowed the arrest and torture of comrades, including members of the regional committee that had just been elected by the Party conference in the region." Ka Basil was one of the members of her collective in the regional committee ordered arrested by Laurenaria.

He also named the other leading cadres who held high positions. He admired and praised them for humbly submitting to disciplinary action from the Party, remaining loyal to the revolution, showing complete remorse and rectifying.

On the other hand, he intensely detested the others, especially Laurenaria, because she refused to recognize her own errors, merely pretended to accept disciplinary action, and in other instances insisted on the correctness of OPML. Towards the end of the Second Great Rectification Movement (SGRM), Laurenaria completely betrayed the Party and the revolutionary movement and joined the "MLPP-RHB" (Marxist-Leninist Party of the Philippines-Rebolusyonaryong Hukbong Ba-yan). This group has no right to call itself as such because it desecrates Marxism, Leninism, the revolution and the people. This group colludes with and allows itself to be used by the reactionary forces and military; serves as a paid private army of rotten and fascist politicians; attacks the Party, people's army and the revolutionary movement; sows deception and confusion; and inflicts cruelty on the masses.

Likewise, he detested those who led Task Force Missing Link, the unit that carried out OPML in Southern Tagalog. Principal among them is Kenny, the head of TFML, who evaded accountability and bolted the Party after the CPP put a stop to and declared OPML to be a grave error.

Among his fellow victims, Ka Basil expressed his extreme disgust at Manuel Quiambao Pe�a (better known by the name Taning). He knew that Pe�a was one of those most intensely tortured in OPML. On the other hand, it was clear to Pe�a and many other victims of OPML that such acts were contrary to the principles and policies of the Party, the New People's Army and the revolutionary movement.

Pe�a and all of the other victims of OPML who were rescued personally witnessed the Party central leadership's timely and decisive intervention in the latter months of 1988 to investigate, put a halt to and declare the OPML a big error and devoid of basis. They were also witness to the imposition of disciplinary action against its ringleaders based on the gravity of their violations of the policies and guidelines of the Party, people's army and revolutionary movement, and of the rights of comrades. Likewise, they witnessed the rectification of the errors of OPML and other similar anti-infiltration hysteria.

In reality, however, the bigger and more basic issue with "Taning" was his obsession with NGOism and other examples of serious disorientation which gravely damaged the Party and the revolutionary movement in the 1980s. As he wallowed in NGOism, he ended up collaborating with the state and other traitors in attacking the Party and the revolutionary movement. For this, he focuses on the errors of OPML and other anti-infiltration hysteria in the 1980s which have already been rectified.

It is ironic that Pe�a now treads the same path as the criminal ringleaders of OPML, other similar anti-infiltration hysteria and other grave errors who refused to rectify and therefore have either been expelled or have separated themselves from the Party. They have all refused to accept the fact that the SGRM has rectified the broader errors of the 1980s. They have all chosen to continue wallowing in the grave disorientation that the Party has decisively repudiated and abandoned. They all fight the Party and the revolutionary movement instead of the reactionary ruling classes and the state.

Together with Robert "Bobby" Garcia, another OPML victim who incessantly blames the Party instead of the erring ringleaders of OPML, Pe�a's current life's mission is to search continuously for opportunities and means of reviving the OPML issue, portray it as the handiwork of the Party and as something inherent in the Party and in Marxism-Leninism, and use it to attack and to attempt to destroy the Party.

Pe�a has long been looking for anyone he could goad into coming up with a version of OPML's events that hews to their wishes and anti-communist objectives. "I remember in 1999 when I visited Pe�a's office in Cubao, he was trying to convince me to disclose the cruelty and wrongdoing that attended OPML and have the accounts published in the Inquirer, as I was allegedly one of its victims." They had agreed with someone in the paper to use OPML to malign the Party.

Even then, Basil resisted Pe�a's efforts to provoke him, as well as a similar request from "Bobby" Garcia, who also approached him at this time. Ka Basil was thoroughly convinced that Pe�a and Garcia's sinister motives would not do any good to the Party, the revolutionary movement and even the OPML victims themselves. Said Ka Basil: "Their plans would only provide the enemy with disparaging information. What they are doing and what they they are trying to deceive the victims into doing are no different from the anticommunist and counterrevolutionary black propaganda and Red scare tactics that the reactionary state already carries out." They collaborate with the most active traitors against the Party and the revolution, the counterrevolutionary, pseudo-reformists and agents of the reactionary government and military. Certain front institutions and intelligence agencies of the US and puppet government fund the institutions that they use, the publications that they put out, and the activities that they hold.

Ka Basil strongly condemned Pe�a and Garcia's destructive maneuvers and intrigues. "Instead of focusing the blame on the traitors and criminals who initiated the anti-infiltration hysteria and errors such as Laurenaria, Ricardo Reyes who approved Kampanyang Ahos�the earlier version of OPML in Mindanao, Arturo Tabara who launched and personally tortured and abused those who were victimized in the Visayas, and Nilo de la Cruz who together with Popoy Lagman led a similar anti-infiltration hysteria in Metro Manila, they preferred to collude with the enemy and together chose to aim their guns at the Party and the revolutionary movement."

Ka Basil was one of those who experienced the worst physical torture and hardships in OPML, but at no time did he lose his comradely attitude towards those who committed errors and made all-out rectification and remained loyal to the Party and the revolution. He reserved his anger and hatred for the ringleaders who showed no remorse and those who completely betrayed the Party as well as a few victims who let themselves be used by the enemy.

In continuing to spread lies, distortions of fact and twisted conclusions on the OPML, said Ka Basil, the traitors prove that they are special enemy agents and paid anti-Party propagandists. In conclusion, Ka Basil called on his fellow victims and the families of the victims to repudiate the likes of Pe�a and Garcia who serve nothing but malicious ruling class propaganda against the Party and the revolutionary movement.

07 May 2004
English Edition

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