Joma: Don’t look at me

Exiled communist leader Jose Ma. Sison denied any hand in the assassination of former New People’s Army (NPA) leader Romulo Kintanar, saying his slain ex-comrade "had too many enemies in the criminal world of military and police operatives."

"It is idle and malicious for anyone to speculate or insinuate that I have something to do with the killing of Romulo Kintanar," Sison said in a statement yesterday from his base in the Netherlands. "I am being given too much credit."

According to Sison, there are three possible angles in the killing of Kintanar.

One is that Kintanar was killed "after getting involved in numerous criminal operations in which corrupt military and police officers were either his cooperators or his rivals and enemies."

Sison claimed Kintanar, being an intelligence agent in the guise of a consultant and security chief of the Bureau of Immigration (BI), apparently harbored many enemies from within since his operations included "protection rackets, armed robbery, murder for hire, collection of unwarranted fees from overseas contract workers and sale of women entertainers abroad."

Sison alleged that Kintanar was involved in the murder of actress Nida Blanca "in which a large amount of money from a high politician was at stake."

His second theory is that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and covert US military forces might have carried out the killing since Kintanar was believed to have masterminded the assassination of US army Col. James Rowe in the late 1980s.

Sison said Kintanar’s killing could be a "prelude" that he could be the next target by the Americans.

At the same time, Sison dismissed allegations that the NPA carried out the killing. "It (NPA) would likely admit responsibility in due time," he said.

Two unidentified gunmen fired at Kintanar, 52, hitting him eight times in the body, killing him instantaneously inside a Quezon City restaurant Thursday noon. Two other customers were left wounded during the attack.

Authorities are looking into the high probability that Kintanar’s former comrades in the NPA are behind the murder.

Kintanar was among the four former communist leaders allegedly sentenced to death by an NPA "people’s court" after they broke away from the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) headed by Sison.

Following the struggle within the CPP leadership on 1991. Kintanar found himself on the side of the "rejectionists and traitors," as branded by Sison.

Sison has accused Kintanar of stealing funds after breaking away from the CPP.

"It is widely known that Kintanar made himself liable for punishment by the revolutionary forces because of the crimes he committed while he was inside the revolutionary movement and after he became an enemy intelligence agent," he said.

Sison went on to tag Kintanar as among those who hatched an assassination plot against him, being the "chief project officer" of then President Joseph Estrada and Panfilo Lacson, then the Philippine National Police (PNP) chief.

He said Estrada was the mastermind of the assassination plot and that it was allegedly Lacson who "directed TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) official Romulo Kintanar to serve as the chief project officer."

Kintanar was allegedly tasked to prepare an intelligence and operational plan against Sison who is in self-exile in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Meanwhile, the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFD) belied accusations made by Sison that Kintanar was a criminal.

"This man, whatever his past may have been, was never a criminal. On the contrary, by his principled commitment to our people, he had offered the best part of his life, services and generosity to many," the TFD said. — With Benjie Villa