For once, let me speak out on the raging controversy brought about by the killing of former CPP-NPA cadres and leaders of which Rolly Kintanar, a former comrade and a longtime friend, was the latest victim.
Intensified attacks
The killing of Kintanar signaled the CPP-NPA-NDF's intensified armed attacks on us - the so-called Rejectionists. His murder was preceded by baseless verbal attacks slandering our integrity as individuals and revolutionaries. They resorted to name-calling in total disregard of facts, reason, or logic. They routinely called us 'counter revolutionaries', 'saboteurs', 'government agents', 'government shadows', even using extremely personal tags such as 'drunkards' and 'bandits'. The peace process the Rebolusyonaryong Partido Ng Manggagawa - RPA-ABB entered into was labeled 'political surrender' and 'collaboration'. They let loose all these accusations without offering even a smidgen of proof.
It now appears they were setting the stage for the assassination of all those who broke away - building a scenario in which the killings would be perceived as "natural" and therefore acceptable.
Humility aside, let me declare that all the leaders of the 'Rejectionists' (except for one or two) have generally untarnished records in the revolutionary movement and the party. These leaders have in fact rendered long years of exceptional service as leaders and members of the party and the revolutionary movement. These leaders rose from the ranks and held responsible positions before the split in the party --indisputable proof of their integrity, loyalty, and excellence.
This was further proven by the fact that when the NPA was under the direct stewardship of these now so-called Rejectionists, the guerilla army expanded and consolidated in a breadth and scope unparalleled in its history. During this period, the NPA reaped unequivocal support from the majority of the people.
Even after we were expelled from the party, most of us persevered in our commitment to the revolution based on our new orientation, track, and programs.
Our split from the CPP was induced by basic political and ideological differences. To be precise, it was triggered by the "Reaffirm" document which supposedly summed-up the experiences of the party. But a close scrutiny of the document revealed that what it wanted to do was to undermine the unprecedented advance of the revolutionary movement by theoretical concoctions and subjectivist conclusions.
Instead of resolving new problems brought about by the all-rounded development of the struggle in the 80's, it was adjudged erroneous. As if wanting to turn back the hands of time, the CPP leadership prescribed a return to the strategy blueprint laid down in 1968. It were as if the movement, the party and society had gone into suspended animation and never made any progress.
The debate that ensued upon the release and approval of the "Reaffirm" document defined the political and ideological nature of the differences. The demand of the Rejectionists' for a summing-up of the weaknesses of the party and movement fell on deaf ears. The demand for a unity congress as the proper venue for the resolution of the problems was met by our unceremonious expulsion from the party.
This prompted us to comprehensively deepen the study on the ideological, political, organizational premises and practices of the party and movement and its strategy and tactics. This period of deep introspection for the Rejectionists resulted in a comprehensive re-orientation program that re-examined old dogma in light of new challenges.
For more than ten years now, our questions regarding the leadership and ideology, strategy and tactics have been consistently met with personal attacks, defamation and ultimately, with bullets. The CPP leadership prefers to vilify and hunt us down rather than engage us in a principled debate for the benefit of revolutionary direction and practice.
If not through debate, the Reaffirmists could have opted to prove their correctness in practice, but they did not. They could have resolved to prove their correctness based on concrete developments, as we resolve to do.
The Split
It was precisely the Stalinist and Maoist leadership and framework of the CPP that provoked the split. It came as no surprise that first to break away were those in key positions in the Central Committee and Regional Committees and the General Command of the NPA. Who else would be in the position to know that the policies enforced by the leadership were at the least erroneous and at the most, unjust?
"Internal party democracy" within the CPP was rarely democratic. Party members were often at the mercy of the whims and caprices of the higher organs. Even the committee system has been corrupted with only two to three top CPP leaders determining the fate of the whole revolutionary movement. While everything boils down to ideological and political differences, what does one do when the leadership's ideology and political orientation does not tolerate differences?
Their dogmatic approach dictates they are absolutely correct and those who oppose are wrong, absolutely. Worse, they reduced these differences to questions of line: revolutionary and counter revolutionary. This explains the attitude that they are the only remaining revolutionaries and all who differ with them are counter-revolutionaries. If one extends this warped logic, then all those who persist beyond their leadership should be attacked and eliminated.
People's Court?
The CPP-NPA-NDF claims that a people's court had judged us as "counter-revolutionaries", which is punishable by death. It has also charged us with every crime in the book. Every personal attack, accusation, and threat that is uttered by Joma Sison and his ilk only reiterates our correctness in breaking away from their Stalinist and Maoist dogma. Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal have been up and about justifying the actions of the CPP-NPA. He says they were only upholding the decisions of the people's court. But what the CPP had done to the people's court is nothing short of an abomination.
A people's court should represent the people's sentiments and judgment. Hence, it ishould be composed of the army, the party and different people's organizations. Under the CPP, this was never realized. Only in the barangay level did the CPP's people's court come near to its basic concept.
In practice, the people's court became synonymous to the party committee. Even in the NPA, the military commands were the ones that heard cases and imposed penalties. In truth, the "people's court decision" being bruited about by Rosal was nothing more than the imposition of Joma Sison and his minions. The corresponding committee merely affirmed what Joma Sison and the Tiamzon couple had decreed, passing it off as "decisions of the people's court".
The malaise
The murder of Romulo Kintanar dramatizes the ruthlessness of the CPP in its truest form. His brutal killing was the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back-one that exhausted the remaining patience of many comrades in the broad revolutionary movement. The asassination of Conrado Balweg, Popoy Lagman, Ka Jobay and many others, the military offensives against the RHB and RPA-ABB and even the attacks on grassroots organizers of non-ND groups -- all illustrate how the CPP's Stalinism-Maoism works.
These past months, the so-called "defenders of the masses" have earned the media and the public's ire for the bombing of cellsites and bus stations, rampant "revolutionary taxation", and the vicious attacks on former comrades. Unfortunately, the CPP has dragged the name of the revolutionary movement along with it. After three decades of a Protracted People's War, not only have they left the masses weary and skeptical, the CPP-NPA has brought them more misery. The CPP's anti people's activities have significantly de-popularized the revolutionary alternative.
Their numerous errors and abominations notwithstanding, the biggest crime of the Stalinist-Maoist CPP is that people now shun revolution as an option, even if poverty and injustice intensify everyday. Indeed, the Stalinism-Maoism faithfully practiced by the CPP is the plague of the revolutionary movement.
Moving on
In the end, after the smoke has cleared, only three things will determine the final judgment: the concrete development, the people, and finally, history itself. No one, not even the collective, subjective wish of an organization can change that.
Meantime, we busy ourselves waging a revolution that depends on the revolutionary mass movement - not on bullets and dogma. For every success and failure, gain and setback of an organization, the responsibility rests on each individual who is a part of that organization, from the lowest to the highest rank; whereas policy matters are the responsibility of the leadership. This is the general norm.
But the leadership of the CPP-NPA-NDF does otherwise. For three decades, the
party leadership has ruled over the national democratic movement, brazenly
claiming every line of praise, every battle won, every advance of the mass
movement. Failures, however were an accountability of individual members
only, and were punished accordingly.
