To the First Quarter Storm Foundation, Tibak and other communities belonging to the national democratic tradition,

Among the many things said during the wake for Rolly Kintanar, that which I found most touching and compelling was the call of the First Quarter Storm Foundation for a full disclosure of the truth about the “dark side” of the revolutionary national democratic movement which kept on surfacing during the past few years and which was brought once again into the limelight by the arrogant declarations of the CPP-NPA leadership owning up to the killing of Rolly Kintanar.

For ten years, for ten long years, I have chosen to exercise utmost restraint in bringing up in the open polemic between the Rejectionists to which I belong and the Reaffirm group the ugly issues of reported killings of and so-called criminal activities undertaken by the CPP-NPA. This attitude was shared by many Rejectionist leaders who like me believed that despite the viciousness and savagery of Reaffirm attacks, we should be guided by two more important considerations. The first was to focus on issues that would have bearings on reviving a weakened revolutionary movement and charting its future course, like internal democracy, a strategy more attuned to the times and an ideological framework that could guide us to bring this about. Dredging up the ugly internal issues would only create confusion and demoralization and mess up the ideological and political debates.

The other consideration was self-defense. Many of us were newly released on bail from prison and had pending cases, all related to rebellion. To freely discuss internal matters in public would bring delight to our government prosecutors. Our accusers from the Reaffirm camp were all in the underground, an advantage they used to the hilt to name us in their accusations without the least compunction and sense of fair play. Until now, some of us, including me, continue to suffer from this disadvantage.

Despite such limitations, we still tried to address some of the issues by writing under names of collectives or individual pseudonyms. In all the pieces I wrote, I tried my best to be fair to everybody and to be self-critical in line with the better Marxist examples. But reading those writings now, one can still sense the desire to avoid telling the whole truth.

Such restraint on my part as well as many Rejectionists were obviously not appreciated by our Reaffirm adversaries. They proceeded to vilify us like demons inside and outside the revolutionary movement and expelled us from the organization with nary a bit of due process. I never received a single communication letter or even a pasabi about my alleged offenses from the day I got out of prison.

I learned and read about those accusations only in the media. After sometime, the Reaffirm leaders came out in the media to announce that a “people’s court” already tried four of us, including me, found us guilty and sentenced us to the maximum penalty. To which I openly replied in print and multimedia: Then shoot me, and if you killed me, talo kayo sa debate. Years passed but they never relented. In the meantime, each one of us busied ourselves with building new movements that will take up both old and new revolutionary agenda, integrating old and new answers to a mix of old and new questions.

I helped build a new home that is radically different from the old one where I grew up. It is pluralist and democratic. But it also retained some basic features of the old-the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist stand, the commitment to the empowerment of the working people, the passions and imperatives of the socialist tradition. Some reproached me for having abandoned the revolutionary traditions. No, I just happened to realize that a new synthesis is in order for the Left, the best of what emerges from the new and the best of the traditions. Many can attest that in our evolving community I “go to war” whenever the best of those traditions are attacked or ridiculed.

Throughout those years, I often wondered when and how could we reckon with the ugly internal issues of the past. I could see and feel how they often muddled and disfigured inner-Left discourses. They were an awesome burden to the emerging leaders and the growing constituencies of the new movements. And because of the self-restraint exercised by many Rejectionists, the many lies and half-truths peddled by the Reaffirm group had started to sound and appear as gospel truths. The fact that many veteran cadres opted to be neutral or silent, with some even taking advantage of the situation to settle personal scores with Rejectionist leaders, made matters even worse.

With Rolly Kintanar’s assassination, I believe the time has indeed come for a full accounting of the past-thorough and fair, no matter who gets hurt.
The whole story must be recounted in full and with all the objectivity we can muster from within ourselves so as to dispel the half-truths and lies and bring to light the whole truth. Despite my present legal limitations, I have decided to fully commit myself to this process.

I understand that the idea of forming a civil society Truth Commission to address these issues has been going around our communities for months already. I learned that the idea is to get men and women of probity and independence, with sympathy for the movement, and acceptable to all sides for this purpose. I fully support this proposal and am willing to be among the first, if not the first, to testify or make depositions before such a body.

Like you, I pray that the heightened tensions and animosities generated by Rolly’s assassination won’t lead to violent reprisals. I will give whatever I can contribute to making the handling of the situation political. A body like a truth commission can probably provide a peaceful channel for redress, without which acts of violence would be too difficult to avoid.

Bringing out the truth is something we all owe to all those who joined and put their trust and faith in the movement, especially those who gave their all to its great cause. We owe this to the young generation who should be freed from the burdens of the past and who ought to benefit from its learnings.

I know that the real challenge to coming out to tell the truth is to tell it in spite of oneself. I pray that come deposition time, I can be equal to the challenge.

Ricardo B. Reyes