On issues arising from Kintanar's punishment
Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal
Spokesperson
Communist Party of the Philippines
February 07, 2003
I would like to present additional views and clarifications from the Party leadership on matters arising from the meting out of punishment to Romulo Kintanar.
First of all, I wish to reiterate that meting and implementing the maximum penalty on Romulo Kintanar was absolutely correct and necessary based on the following capital crimes he committed against the revolutionary movement and the people:
1. He appropriated the name and forces of the Party and the NPA for his gangster activities from 1980-1992 despite the Party and the NPA's clear prohibition of such acts.
2. He faces many cases of embezzling huge amounts of Party funds in the same period.
3. He was among those who led the campaign to fractionalize and destroy the Party from 1992 to 2003.
4. As an AFP and PNP consultant, he joined AFP and PNP meetings and conferences to study the course of the "counter-insurgency" campaign and help in outlining more effective means and tactics against the NPA and the revolutionary movement.
5. He served as an actual military intelligence agent and special military consultant in launching the counterrevolutionary programs and plans of the AFP and PNP from 1992 until 2003. He was also an NBI intelligence agent.
6. He served as the project officer in the failed assassination attempt on Comrade Jose Ma. Sison in May 2000.
7. He was a gun-for-hire, using the security agency he set up as a front, and in this capacity, was commissioned to perpetrate a number of criminal rubouts.
8. He masterminded and participated in many other heinous crimes from 1992 until 2003.
The first cases against Kintanar were filed before the people's court in 1993. All things considered, the gravity of his cases and criminal accountabilities to the people and the revolutionary movement up to that time were sufficient bases to impose the maximum penalty.
In carrying out revolutionary justice, the Party and the revolutionary movement have a policy where, those who show genuine remorse and rectify their errors are given consideration and the possiblity of granting amnesty is opened. This policy was applied on all those who betrayed the Party and the revolutionary movement, including Kintanar. But he showed not an iota of remorse nor did he make any form of rectification. The number of cases filed against him in relation to his criminal and counterrevolutionary activities continuously grew. In the review of his cases conducted by a special people's court in 2002, weight was given to new evidence proving that Kintanar had turned into a rabid criminal and counterrevolutionary and that he further indulged in his criminal and counterrevolutionary activities when he openly turned traitor to the Party and the revolutionary movement.
Worse than his criminal activities was his direct participation in the structure of the AFP, PNP, NBI and other government intelligence agencies as consultant, intelligence agent and special military and police operative against the revolutionary movement. His being a military intelligence agent was confirmed by no less than Malacañang and the AFP after he was punished by the revolutionary movement on January 23. In short, he did not choose to live a "quiet life" and "pass his days as a civilian" as others have claimed, and instead chose to actively resist and commit acts detrimental to the revolutionary movement. Such acts included colluding with the AFP and PNP in launching military operations against the NPA and the foiled plan to kill Comrade Jose Ma. Sison in May 2000 in cahoots with then PNP chief Panfilo Lacson.
Having proven that he had committed capital crimes, he was sentenced by the special people's court to receive the maximum penalty. Aside from this, as a military intelligence operative and an operative who participated in planning counterrevolutionary military operations against the revolutionary movement, he had become a legitimate military target in accordance with the international rules of war as stipulated in Section II, Article 43 of Protocol I of the Geneva Agreements (1949).
Second. The Party condemns the hysteria created by the counterrevolutionary renegades, Malacañang and the AFP in claiming the existence of a long list of targets for liquidation that supposedly includes all those who have resigned from, or betrayed, the CPP and NPA.
I have clarified in my previous statements that the maximum penalty within the framework of the revolutionary justice system is reserved only for persons who have been found guilty beyond reasonable doubt of capital crimes against the people and the revolutionary movement. These are carefully decided on and repeatedly reviewed by the people's court to ensure the decisions' correctness. I have also recently clarified that only a handful of the most rabid criminal and counterrevolutionary elements have been sentenced to receive the maximum penalty.
But the revolutionary justice system that is so thorough, scientific, just and humane is being distortedly portrayed by Malacañang, the AFP and psywar manufacturers as arbitrary and worthless.
Malacañang, the AFP and their psywar manufacturers are relentlessly spinning yarns to portray the CPP and NPA as criminals and terrorists. The Malacañang invention of an "NPA hitlist" that supposedly includes Presidential chief of staff Rigoberto Tiglao and Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople has repeatedly been the subject of their press releases to make it appear that the NPA is indiscriminate in the use of armed force and targets even civilians, and that Kintanar's punishment was an act of terrorism.
Just as execrable as Malacañang's psywar are the gross distortions and vilification of the Party by counterrevolutionary renegades like Arturo Tabara, Nilo dela Cruz and Nathan Quimpo who are all guilty of grave crimes and have accountabilities to the revolutionary movement. They spew venom and spread disinformation to portray Kintanar and themselves as angels, evade their accountabilities to the revolutionary movement and make it appear that Kintanar's punishment was a harsh and inappropriate response to a simple ideological dispute.
Even when he was still operating under false pretenses within the revolutionary movement and especially when he openly committed treason, Tabara was going all-out in cooperating with the military and police by providing whatever old information he had about the Party and the revolutionary movement. He is now an out-and-out mercenary, an instrument of the worst reactionary elements like Danding Cojuangco who has incurred many blood debts to the revolutionary movement and the people and severely oppresses and exploits tens of thousands of peasants in Negros, Isabela and other areas. Tabara and dela Cruz have transformed the RPA-ABB from simply being a paramilitary force attached to the AFP and PNP, into a private army in Cojuangco's employ as well.
The agreements they entered into with the Estrada regime in 1999 and again with the Macapagal-Arroyo regime in 2002 completely subsumed the RPA-ABB to the control and authority of the AFP and PNP and consolidated their informal arrangements involving their use as cannon fodder in the AFP-PNP counterrevolutionary war. Kintanar served as consultant in the RPA-ABB's surrender talks and was the intermediary between the RPA-ABB and the Dept. of Budget and Management for the release of huge amounts of funds that were supposedly needed for "livelihood projects" but were being pocketed by Tabara and company.
With full mendacity, dela Cruz seized the opportunity presented by Kintanar's punishment to pass on the blame to the CPP-NPA for the RPA-ABB's killing of Filemon "Popoy" Lagman two years ago. It was the culmination of a dispute between Tabara-dela Cruz and Lagman in dividing the P400 million bribe given personally to Lagman by PEA-Amari in exchange for the cooperation extended by the Lagman and Tabara-dela Cruz groups in expelling urban poor residents from Freedom Island, Parañaque. The Tabara-dela Cruz group was consumed with anger after Lagman pocketed the bulk of the spoils and left the RPA-ABB with mere crumbs.
Quimpo, on the other hand, makes it appear that Kintanar's gangster activities were merely part of his "official duties" in accordance with directives from the Party's central leadership. He wishes to portray Kintanar as a "good soldier," contrary to the reality that Kintanar's gangster activities were concealed from the Party's central leadership and that he kept the spoils for himself and indulged in them along with his corrupt cohorts. Quimpo also uses such rationalizations to cover up his own personal accountability in the conduct and implementation of Kampanyang Ahos in Mindanao in 1984-85, in violation of Party policies and principles and without the knowledge of the CPP central leadership.
Third. The Party condemns the "terrorist" and "criminal" labels on legitimate revolutionary activities and political struggles against reactionary and puppet policies and rule and against the worst transgressors on the rights and welfare of the people.
In their desperate attempt to make the NPA appear as "terrorist" and "criminal," Malacañang takes pains to portray Kintanar as a "good person" who "chose the path of peace" even as Malacañang and the AFP admit that he was "working as a military intelligence agent."
They are also desperately buttressing their accusations that Comrade Jose Ma. Sison is a "terrorist" by implicating him in celebrated cases where the NPA has meted punsihment on rabid people's enemies like Romulo Kintanar and Col. Rodolfo Aguinaldo and supposedly filing cases on this with the United Nations. The Macapagal-Arroyo regime has been doing this in an attempt to coerce the CPP-NPA-NDF and the negotiating panel in the peace talks into accepting the document it has prepared for the CPP-NPA-NDF's surrender in the form of the proposed "Final Peace Agreement."
They also want to portray as "criminal" and "terrorist" even the simple task of the Party spokesperson to present the CPP and revolutionary movement's stand; and thus they have announced a P1 million prize for the capture of your humble servant.
Anything they could lay their hands on, they pick up and throw at the Party and the NPA in their desperate attempt to picture the revolutionary movement as "criminal" and "terrorist."
But in the final analysis, the Macapagal-Arroyo regime hits no one but its own self. Its coddling of counterrevolutionary renegades, including those who have committed grave crimes against the people and the revolutionary movement, is a clear manifestation of its utter rottenness.###
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