It was absolutely correct to punish Romulo Kintanar

Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal
Spokesperson
Communist Party of the Philippines
January 26, 2003

Romulo Kintanar's criminal accountabilities to the revolutionary movement and the people are numerous.

Kintanar began to give full vent to his criminal activities in 1984 in Davao. They worsened by the end of the 1980s and were exacerbated when he was expelled from the Party in 1992 and joined criminal syndicates within and outside the military. It was absolutely correct to put an end to his corrupt, criminal, counterrevolutionary and bloody record.

Serious criminal charges were filed against him at the people's court in 1993. Found guilty beyond reasonable doubt, the people's court meted on him the maximum penalty.

The NPA had long been ordered to arrest him and present him before the people's court. But he had long been evading arrest and had even taken countermeasures to avoid facing his criminal accountabilities.

Punishment was successfully meted on January 23, 2002 by a special unit of the New People's Army. This is part of the Party and the NPA's determination to make accountable to revolutionary justice those guilty of the most serious crimes against the revolution and the people, whether they be present or former leaders of the Party and the NPA or are wealthy or powerful highly placed reactionaries.

The NPA metes the maximum penalty only on those found guilty beyond reasonable doubt of having committed heinous crimes. Kintanar was one such person. Following are but some of his biggest criminal accountabilities committed way back when he was still operating under false pretenses within the Party and the New People's Army, and which worsened when he openly betrayed the revolutionary movement:

1) Illegal abuse of his authority within the Party and people's army in masterminding, launching and propagating gangster operations. The "special operations" groups he organized or led were the ones who implemented kidnapping-for-ransom, holdups of banks and other businesses, dollar counterfeiting operations and other forms of crime and malfeasance. He used the dirty money he earned for the personal indulgence and luxury and decadent lifestyle that he and his cohorts led. He corrupted and debased the urban partisan units under his command. He likewise recruited dregs of society and connived with criminal syndicates, military and police forces and rotten elements who, along with him, eventually became traitors and were expelled from the Party and the NPA. Some of the operatives he used were killed in an attempted bank holdup in Para�aque before his arrest in 1991.

Such operations were first undertaken in Davao City until the latter became the "killing capital" in the early part of the 1980s. He expanded and brought this on the national scale. From 1989 until his arrest in 1991, the special operations unit under his direct command did nothing but engage in criminal gangster operations. They raked in millions of pesos from such activities, which they concealed from the Party and kept for themselves.

Kintanar's criminal gang was responsible for the biggest kidnap cases during the 1980s. It was responsible for kidnapping Japanese businessman Noboyuki Wakaoji in 1986, where Kintanar and his men earned $10 million in ransom.

In 1989, in connivance with then CPP Visayas Commission secretary Arturo Tabara, Kintanar also masterminded the kidnapping in Iloilo City of Bombo Radyo-Philippines owner and president Roger Florete, raking in P15 million.

Kintanar's criminal activities were perpetrated without authorization from the Party's central leading organ. Since it was clear to Kintanar and his cohorts that such activities violated the policies and rules of the Party and NPA, they purposely concealed them.

After his release in 1992, he used his former position and ordered a group of his former men to continue with their gangster activities, without any authorization from the Party and NPA and despite the central leading organ's campaign against gangsterism.

2) Stealing massive amounts of funds from the Party. Kintanar stole huge amounts of money from the revolutionary movement's funds. One of the biggest cases discovered in 1991 involved P30 million which he appropriated and stashed and to which he alone had access. The Party was able to obtain information about this matter only when the unit directly under his command reported it after his arrest in August 1991. This is aside from other big amounts that he failed to submit to collective supervision, were not properly accounted for and which he refused to subject to investigation. Before he openly betrayed the Party, he likewise cleaned out Party funds from all the accounts that were known to him.

3) Attempt to split and wreck the Party and revolutionary movement. Kintanar was one of the most rabid instigators of factionalism at the onset, and the eventual attempts to destroy the Party and the revolutionary movement. He arrogated the authority to push an all-out anti-Party campaign starting in September 1992. He deceived and goaded a number of Party cadres and members and NPA commanders, fighters and units to wage mutiny and bolt the revolutionary movement. He agreed with and encouraged Filemon Lagman and Arturo Tabara to leave the Party and form the RPA. Although he was not a part of the RPA's formal leadership, he served as adviser to Tabara and Carapali Lualhati on RPA policies, until this culminated in their formal surrender to the government and outright collusion in military operations against the revolutionary movement.

4) Since his expulsion from the Party, Kintanar went full throttle with his criminal and counter-revolutionary activities. He connived with the AFP and PNP against the Party and the revolutionary movement, became preoccupied with criminal syndicate operations and bureaucratic corruption, and served as gun-for-hire to reactionary politicians and others who wanted to commission killings.

He used his status and internal knowledge of the revolutionary movement to support the government's "counter-insurgency" operations. He served as a security consultant to Gen. Alexander Aguirre, Estrada's national security adviser. Before he was meted punishment, his real job -- as a Malaca�ang official himself disclosed -- was to serve as consultant to the AFP and PNP, even as he drew his salary and used his position as security consultant for the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation and the National Electrification Administration as fronts. He directly connived with the ISAFP under Col. Victor Corpus in planning and implementing surveillance operations, psy-ops and sabotage operations and attacking and attempting to destroy NPA units and guerrilla zones.

Kintanar himself was the project officer of a group formed in May 2000 and sent to the Netherlands to undertake the assasination of Comrade Jose Maria Sison. However, the group met difficulties, squabbled and had to return. This only shows up to what extent Kintanar would go in conspiring with his buddies among the military and bureaucracy to violently fight against the revolution.

Even Philip Medel became one of the hired killers under Kintanar and his uncle, former ISAFP chief Gen. Galileo Kintanar's wing. They maintained various safehouses for their criminal transactions with Medel and other guns-for-hire. Romulo Kintanar merely concocted the story about Medel's confession regarding the killing of Nida Blanca.

With Kintanar going all-out in conspiring with the military and police, it was no wonder that he was treated as a VIP by the AFP and PNP. In fact, Kintanar, aside from Arturo Tabara of the RPA-ABB, was a special guest of PNP Director General Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. during the recent anniversary of the National Capital Region Police Office.

Though these are related to his criminal cases, we treat his espousal of anti-Party ideological, political and organizational lines differently. Kintanar was among those who instigated the lines of military adventurism, premature urban insurrectionism and other serious errors that wrought grave damage to the Party and the revolutionary movement.

He was also involved in planning and implementing the decision that kicked off the arrests, torture and murder of suspected deep penetration agents (DPA) in Mindanao in 1984. This created the atmosphere and mode for the ensuing Kampanyang Ahos. He conspired with other elements in concealing information from the Central Committee's 9th Plenum in 1985 about the raging bloody witchhunt and the severe damage this wrought, thus preventing the Party's central leadership from immediately putting an end to it and instituting corrective measures.

Despite his major accountabilities for the serious errors that wrought grave setbacks to the Party, the NPA and the revolutionary movement, and despite his refusal to accept responsibility for such errors, he not only abandoned the movement, he even continued to insist on the erroneous line, and to betray and fight the Party and the revolution.

To correct the distortions by Malaca�ang and the military, I would like to stress that the revolutionary movement reserves the maximum penalty only for those who have been proven beyond reasonable doubt of having committed serious and heinous crimes against the people and the revolutionary movement such as unjust killing and kidnapping for ransom.

I also wish to clarify that resigning from the Party or leaving the revolutionary movement or simply espousing the erroenous line or speaking against the Party are not considered crimes punishable by death.

Joining the Party, NPA and revolutionary movement is entirely voluntary and anyone who does not agree with the movement or who could no longer carry on the tasks or bear the sacrifices attendant to waging revolution is free to leave. Erroneous lines are corrected through education campaigns. Political and propaganda attacks are likewise countered in the arena of politics and propaganda and not through force. In this regard, Malaca�ang's claim that there is an NPA hit list that includes Presidential chief of staff Rigoberto Tiglao is a monstrous lie.

In fact, the ideological, political and organizational issues within the Party and the revolutionary movement have in the main been resolved through the Party's successful repudiation and rectification of the militarist and insurrectionist line peddled by Kintanar and by his exiting the Party and the NPA to wage an all-out campaign from the outside against the NPA and the revolution. The revolutionary movement's victories in the fields of armed struggle, united front work, base building and in advancing people's struggles, especially in the past three years, are proof of the success of the rectification movement waged by the Party from 1992 to 1998.

Kintanar was meted punishment not for espousing the wrong ideological, political and organizational line but for his serious criminal accountabilities to the revolutionary movement and the people.

Thus, it is ridiculous for Macapagal-Arroyo, the AFP, PNP and Kintanar's co-conspirators and fellow traitors and criminals to make him out as a "good citizen" and an advocate of peace. It is one thing to simply talk about the need for peace. It is another thing to be actually involved in counter-revolution and launching armed projects against the revolutionary movement and its personages. It is impossible for someone very deeply involved with criminal syndicates, counterrevolutionary and antipeople military campaigns and gun-for-hire operations to be a person with good intentions and desirous of genuine peace and justice for the people.