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Friday, January 24, 2003
Ex-NPA chief from Cebu shot to death
ROMULO Kintanar, former head of the New People’s Army (NPA), was gunned down while having lunch in a Japanese restaurant in Quezon City yesterday, in an attack that government officials are trying to pin on the comrades he deserted.
Two of his companions were wounded in the attack by four still unidentified gunmen, and military sources said the assault could have been ordered by former comrades in the guerrilla movement.
Reports said Kintanar fired back at his assailants but died on the spot after taking 10 bullets.
Autopsy results showed Kintanar was hit 10 times, bullets ripping through his chest and head, and died at once.
Witnesses said Kintanar’s group was about to leave Kamameshi Restaurant when the gunmen, about five meters from their table, stood up and started shooting Kintanar and his companions.
The assailants immediately fled. They were described by witnesses as 40-45 years old, 5’7" tall and wore decent clothes.
Agents of the Scene of the Crime Operation recovered at least 16 empty shells of .45 and 9 mm pistols.
Supt. Vlladimir Villasenor, chief of the PNP Crime Laboratory, said based on the bullets recovered, Kintanar was shot by more than one person.
Police suspect a rubout by the NPA but Kintanar’s killing, similar to earlier executions of police officers John Campos and Teofilo Viña, may raise a different theory.
Kintanar, born in Davao City, was of Cebuano descent and a relative of the Kintanars in Argao, Cebu.
Mastermind
“Ka Rolly” Kintanar, a former student leader, had masterminded the Maoist NPA’s brief flirtation with an urban guerrilla assassination campaign in Manila and provincial centers that left hundreds of soldiers and policemen dead.
Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said “preliminary information” relayed to Malacañang “indicates Kintanar had always been under constant threat since he turned his back on the NPA.”
“We condemn the brutal slaying of Romulo Kintanar and we extend our sincerest sympathies to his family,” Bunye added.
Kintanar was later expelled from the movement and remained critical of self-exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) leader Jose Maria Sison.
Rep. Simeon Kintanar (Cebu, 2nd district) told radio dyAB in Cebu that Kintanar, his cousin, was in Cebu during the weekend for the Sinulog festivities but had neither shown nor reported any anxiety about his personal safety.
Ka Rolly had openly joined political campaigns after he left the movement.
Three hours before his death, Kintanar was spotted by an ABS-CBN Manila crew in Camp Crame, while working on his papers for a gun permit. He told them in an interview that he was optimistic about the prospects of peace talks between the government and the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade faction of the movement, which had broken away from Sison.
Kintanar was head of the NPA’s general command until his capture in 1988.
He escaped the next year, but was recaptured in 1991.
But at the time of his death, Kintanar was a security consultant for the immigration bureau and the National Electrification Administration, as well as a key witness in the case on the murder of actress Nida Blanca.
A military intelligence source told Agence France Presse they suspect that the CPP leadership had ordered Kintanar assassinated by a special NPA unit.
At least two other senior NPA leaders who later left the movement were subsequently assassinated, including Feli-mon Lagman, who was shot dead in the same district as Kintanar two years ago.
Target
Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, a former rebel leader, told ABS-CBN television he was unaware of any NPA threat against Kintanar.
He said there were a number of rebel leaders who were “removed from the leadership and who were moving about as freely as he was.”
“There has not been a statement from the revolutionary movement that they are being targeted for physical elimination,” Ocampo added.
Peace talks between the government and the CPP-NPA collapsed in 2001 after the rebels gunned down two legislators. (AFP/Sunnex)
(January 24, 2003 issue)
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