Kintanar’s widow hits husband’s killers as idiots

Calling her husband’s killers "unthinking idiots who are their master’s robots," the wife of slain New People’s Army (NPA) chieftain Romulo Kintanar vowed yesterday to exhaust all possible means to bring justice to him.

Speaking with a mixture of grief and anger, Mrs. Kintanar vowed to give a lesson to her husband’s killers.

"I want the killers identified and put behind bars," she said, her voice quivering. "I pray that the assassins will find their conscience back."

Composing herself before a phalanx of television and print journalists who waited patiently for three hours, Kintanar offered her thanks to the generous tributes offered to her husband’s memory.

Accompanied by her son Gabriel, Kintanar walked out of the crematorium holding a redwood box containing the ashes of her slain husband.

Hugging the box close to her chest, Kintanar said the death of her husband only signaled "the good things he (Kintanar) had done for the people."

She said her husband "dreamed of great things and died for them," adding that Kintanar unlike most men "did not only dream but also worked (to make his dreams a reality)."

Rebel spokesman Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal had admitted a "special team" of the NPA carried out the assassination of Kintanar last week.

"What the NPA said about him are all lies. He was never a traitor. Rolly is a simple man who truly served his country. I am proud and thankful to God that he had been part of my life," Mrs. Kintanar said.

She said her family would plant a tree and scatter some of her husband’s ashes around a garden at the University of the Philippines (UP) Parish of the Holy Sacrifice after the morning Mass tomorrow.

"We want to do this while his sisters from the (United) States are still here," she said eliciting a response from the crowd who cried out, "Mabuhay si Joy!"

A Mass preceded the cremation at the Funeraria Paz along Araneta Avenue in Quezon City yesterday.

Following the Mass, the white bier that carried Kintanar’s body was rolled out from the funeral chapel to the crematorium with his former comrades in the rebel movement as pallbearers.

For the last time, family members viewed Kintanar’s remains. The clapping of hands, an activist’s tribute to a fallen comrade, interspersed with the cries of grieving relatives. "Mabuhay si Ka Rolly!" his former comrades shouted. – With reports from Nikko Dizon, Jaime Laude, Matthew Estabillo