In the quest for the truth, we ask you to have our side heard in relation to the article of Ric Reyes which appeared in your Talk of the Town Section (PDI, 1/30/05). We cannot allow his fabricated and twisted facts and half-truths to spread unchecked and be used by the reactionary Philippine state to hunt down and murder comrades.
As shown by that article, Ric Reyes is not an ordinary counter-revolutionary. He is more than that because he does not simply oppose the new democratic revolution but keeps on feeding the enemy with false, incriminating information which can be used by the fascist AFP against our comrades. Typical of psywar tactics of the enemy, he is spreading blatant lies and half-truths to absolve himself of his principal responsibility for the Kampanyang Ahos in Mindanao while maligning and criminalizing comrades. Here below we present the real facts, particularly on matters that concern our sphere of work and on some matters we are knowledgeable of:
Lie #1: "Kampanyang Ahos and other anti-DPA campaigns were collectively affirmed, approved, reaffirmed and undertaken by the CPP leadership, national and regional, since 1981?."
How could the CPP national leadership have "approved, reaffirmed and undertaken" the Kampanyang Ahos in 1985 when in fact this came to its knowledge only after this had already been launched and was rampaging for several months?
The CPP Mindanao Commission secretary together with Reyes, deputy secretary at that time, concealed this campaign from the knowledge of the national leadership even when they were together at the CC Plenum.
Reyes reveals himself in his faulty statements, in his inconsistency related to this point when he cited the quotation below.
Lie #2: 4) "The Mindacom chair did not bring the matter up to the CC in plenum? However, he brought it up to the EC-CC /immediately/ [our italics] after the plenum."
It is not true that it was brought up "? immediately after the plenum." It took more than a month, at the very least, before it was brought up. It came to the knowledge of the EC-CC only when Romulo Kintanar presented a proposal coming from Reyes, Nathan Quimpo and himself to form a trilateral body in Metro-Manila to go after comrades who had by then transferred to Metro-Manila but were identified by them as DPAs. Only then did the Mindacom secretary brought up the matter. Only then did the EC-CC come to know that such campaign existed. Such proposal was immediately turned down by the EC-CC. The EC-CC also ordered the disbandment of the Mindanao team which was spreading the campaign in Metro-Manila and had already victimized Dave Barrios.
Lie #3: "3-a) The Mindacom chair and another member were tied up for almost a year attending the CC plenum; the key cadres who knew the situation and the forces better were absent from the field when the campaign started."
"You know that I was not in Mindanao at that time as attested to by the PB 1988 document."
As to the first quotation, it is a half-truth. The truth is: The CC plenum was not in session for almost a year. There was a recess in late July-August and it resumed later. During this recess, Reyes went to Cebu City. There he met with the caretaker committee of the Mindanao Commission. In that meeting he instructed the caretaker committee to cancel the scheduled plenum of the Mindanao Commission and instead initiate the launching of the anti-DPA campaign (later called Kampanyang Ahos). As basis for such an urgent meeting, he used the unverified report about enemy infiltration, a report which came from only one comrade operating in the urban areas of Northcentral Mindanao. From that time on, the campaign raged throughout the island.
Reyes may not have been in the field when the campaign started. But he masterminded it. The master plan was his. And he strongly pushed for its implementation. According to the late Francisco Gonzalez, a member of the caretaker committee, Reyes even offered one of his underground houses in Cebu City to be used as a "safe house" to interrogate arrested "DPAs" if there is no safe place in northwest Mindanao.
As to the second quotation, that he was not physically in Mindanao at that time is a lame alibi for his culpability of the campaign. The original planning which he presided over was made in Cebu City but the campaign plan was for Mindanao. If a killing happened in Mindanao but the mastermind lives in New York, USA, does that absolve the mastermind who is not in the killing field?
Another thing, it must be noted that the headquarters of the leadership of Mindacom in 1984 up to early-1986 was in the urban areas of Cebu City and Metro-Manila-not in Mindanao.
Lie #4: "In Kampanyang Ahos, the national leadership was a central player. Benito Tiamzon, your CPP vice chair today, headed the EC-CC special group on the campaign. And who composed the EC-CC then, which also affirmed Cadena de Amor before? Did they not include aside from Benito, Rafael Baylosis and Antonio Cabanatan who are now on your side, and Rodolfo Salas who was chair and on whom you are silent?"
This is similar to Lie #1 but with some additions. Here he mentions a "special group on the campaign". He makes it appear as if it was the EC-CC running the affairs of the campaign, as if the EC-CC was right there in the field conducting the witch-hunt and all the inhumane treatment on our innocent comrades victimized by the campaign. This is a blatant lie. If there was a group formed, it was tasked to investigate the ongoing campaign. The truth is: The caretaker committee, upon Reyes? direct instructions, conducted the campaign.
Secondly, Cabanatan was not in that "special group on the campaign." Reyes seems to insinuate that Cabanatan took part in the campaign. As a leading member then of the Mindacom, Reyes knew fully well that this was impossible since Cabanatan had not been near Mindanao at the time of Kampanyang Ahos. It is also not true that Cabanatan was at the meeting of PB 1988, as fabricated by Reyes.
Lie #5: "You accuse me of spreading Kahos to Manila as if I could command the EC-CC or NCR-based Party organs to do my bidding, when I was not even a member of these organs then."
Reyes makes it appear as if he and his cohorts did not make arbitrary witch-hunt and execution in Metro-Manila without the knowledge of the EC-CC and as if he did not hide very vital information from the knowledge of the EC-CC and CC. The truth is that even before the EC-CC came to know about the campaign in Mindanao, he and some of his cohorts were already going after some Mindanaoan comrades in Metro-Manila and had implemented some covert activities.
Another fact, though not related to the campaign but has a bearing on his dishonesty, is that for many years he concealed from the Party his deal in 1982-83 with then Colonel Delfin but was admitted by him only in 1987.
Lie #6: "You know that I had nothing to do with 1987-1988 decisions because I was being investigated for possibly being a DPA myself and that it took sometime before I was cleared."
It is true that Reyes was investigated for the arrest of Salas in 1986 but the investigation did not run hourly, daily from 1986 to 1987-1988, and he was not removed from his positions. It is a blatant lie to say that he had nothing to do with 1987-1988 decisions when in fact he was an active participant in many of those decision-making processes.
With these few clarifications, we hope that those duped by Reyes may ponder and stand up for what is the real truth.
