Rubbing salt on wounds

It probably isn’t mere coincidence that in the process of defending itself from charges of complicity in political killings, the government is raising the issue of purges within the Communist Party of the Philippines in the ’80s and ’90s.

The ante has been raised by the charge that the purges are continuing and that special operations are now under way to flush out infiltrators. Aside from needling the CPP-New People’s Army about its failure to apologize for these murderous purges, and to compensate the victims, the current media exercise seems aimed at blaming the killings of militants on the purges, thus absolving the government.

The catalyst is the recent "discovery" of a mass grave of about 300 rebels killed in Southern Leyte two decades ago. The AFP has announced that charges will be filed against CPP leader Joma Sison, National Democratic Front negotiator Luis Jalandoni, and Bayan Muna party list Rep. Satur Ocampo, then a central committee member.

Executive Secretary Ed Ermita asserts that, by the CPP-NPA’s own admission, up to 900 suspected "deep penetration agents" were killed in southern Mindanao alone in the ’80s. Presidential chief of staff Mike Defensor argues that, "If they have done these executions several times in the past, nothing could prevent them from doing so again, especially now that they are weakening due to government efforts."

Now comes Jesuit priest Fr. Romeo Intengan, who is quoted in another paper (not the STAR) as claiming "it is possible that most of the militants recently killed were also victims of a cleansing ordered by CPP leaders to rid their ranks of suspected traitors and infiltrators." Such executions of suspected DPAs continue up to now, Fr. Intengan added.

He fumed: "It is despicable that the CPP-NDF-NPA has not stopped carrying out summary executions. It has been rabid in condemning alleged killings perpetrated by the military and police. Communist leaders have no right to point an accusing finger at the government when they themselves are behind many of the killings."

Right off the bat, one is tempted to accuse these spokesmen for the government of gigantic non-sequiturs. Manifestly, the fact that purges of DPAs indubitably occurred in the 1980s does not prove either that these killings are continuing into the 2000s or that the government has nothing to do with recent killings of militants.

It is incumbent on the government to come up with considerably more evidence to back up both propositions. Let’s not get sloppy here and fall into the familiar trap of assuming that the battle for hearts and minds will be won on the field of competing propaganda and press releases.

The Communist Party of the Philippines suffered a major setback in these purges. When the mass graves were discovered and the victims themselves began to testify, the strenuous denials of party hacks and their attempt to dismiss reports of such purges as the work of martial law demolition experts came back to haunt the Party. Arguably, it has not fully recovered from the fallout caused by the purges. But arguably too, the insurgents have failed to learn the lessons of those years.

Clearly, the military considers infiltration of the insurgents as a legitimate strategy and has not let up on attempts to inject DPAs into enemy ranks. If purges are continuing, it may simply indicate that the NPA has not figured out a better counter-strategy to periodic "cleansing."

And since past purges have shown that the victims of cleansing tend to include – if are not primarily – the party faithful themselves, there appears to be no compelling reason for the military to stop infiltrations through DPAs.

This new tack of the administration, with no less than the Executive Secretary and the Presidential chief of staff taking the cudgels, seems to be an escalation of earlier attempts by the National Security Adviser to claim a "new" CPP purge, make the point that government had nothing to do with the abduction and killings of leftist leaders, and implicate the CPP-NPA in the killing of comrades suspected of being government agents.

Over two months ago, Gonzales publicly disclosed the "capture" of a CPP-NPA document which supposedly ordered cadres in the field to clean up above-ground or legal organizations of government infiltrators.

The document also allegedly said the timing was ripe. The constant charges of political killings by the government would make it possible to claim that victims of the internal cleansing were in fact victims of political killings. The government would then get a double whammy: the DPAs would be flushed out and eliminated, and the government would get the blame for the executions of said DPAs.

The cleansing, Gonzales further claimed, was attributable to the continuing struggle between the Rejectionists (RJ) and Joma Sison’s Reaffirmists (RA). There were "growing indications" that the killings were the result of a "continuing war" between the two factions, Gonzales said. The killings of activists, he theorized, may have taken place "to avenge the assassination of RJ leaders" including Popoy Lagman, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara.

From one point of view, all these claims by the National Security Adviser may be deemed unmitigated poppycock. The CPP, through its spokesman "Ka Roger" Rosal, called the captured document an "AFP fabrication," calculated to "cover up" the government’s responsibility for the killings which were "directed by Malacañang and implemented by the AFP and its ‘Black Army’ of death squads."

Citizens can’t be whipsawed between these stories of alleged continuing CPP-NPA cleansings and supposed killings by AFP death squads. Neither is its own excuse for being. Both are repulsive because the killings are murder, pure and simple.

At some point, the government has to come out with evidence more credible than the dredging up of indisputable incidents which happened two decades ago. On the other hand, the Left and its "above-ground" or legal organizations should realize that mere denials won’t wash, not when the victims have increasingly been coming out with disclosures of the horrors and the lasting effects of those all-too-real purges.