Ex-rebels confirm NPA recruitment of students

MANILA, Philippines — Suspected communist rebels who surrendered to the police claimed yesterday that the New People’s Army (NPA) is recruiting students from the University of the Philippines and Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Oscar Albayalde presented to media in Camp Crame, Quezon City the 20 NPA rebels who surrendered to the police on separate occasions in Kalayaan, Laguna since Friday.

Albayalde said the revelation of the alleged former rebels reinforced their allegations the NPA has been recruiting college students through so-called immersion programs.

One of the rebels known as Ka Ruben spoke on behalf of the group and said they have seen several students over the years since he became a rebel in 2009.

They would see two to eight students in every makeshift house within their camp in the mountains, said Ruben.

“Mga isang gabi pagkatapos bumababa na rin po sila kinabukasan (just one night then they leave the next day),” he said.

He said the student asked them about the life of rebels in the mountains, whether what they are doing is easy or hard. Ruben added there were instances when the NPA would use scare tactics and intimidation to force the students to join their ranks.

“They are wooed like young ladies to get their trust and if they refuse they would be forced,” he said in Filipino.

Albayalde said the immersion program invites students to the rebel camps where they are brainwashed and then forced to stay with the NPA.

He cited a shootout in Batangas province in 2017 where one of the suspected rebels killed by soldiers turned out to be a female UP student.

Chief Supt. Edward Carranza, director of the Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon) police, said it only shows that the rebels’ legal fronts are actively recruiting students to become NPA guerrillas.

He said their goal now is to identify these recruiters and arrest them.

Carranza said there are leftist front groups who invite students to join them.

Ruben claimed he and the other former rebels surrendered because they could no longer endure the hardships in the mountains, admitting they were misled by the NPA into fighting the government.

The surrendered rebels consist of 17 men and three women.

They also surrendered one M1 Garand rifle, five 12 gauge shotguns, an Ingram submachine gun, a .30 caliber rifle, four .38 caliber revolvers, one rifle grenade, a fragmentation grenade and at least 432 rounds of ammunition.

Albayalde said the surrender only shows that the NPA is losing its grip on its members.

He said there are only about 3,000 armed NPA rebels in the country. Of the number, about 169 are based in Calabarzon.

The rebel returnees, meanwhile, will receive cash incentives and livelihood funds from the government, Albayalde said.

Meanwhile, former Bayan Muna representative Satur Ocampo and other alleged leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and NPA are not yet off the hook in the terrorism cases being pursued by the government against communist rebels, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said yesterday. 

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said the decision to drop the names of Ocampo, National Democratic Front (NDF) peace consultant Rafael Baylosis, United Nations special rapporteur on rights of indigenous peoples Victoria Lucia Tauli-Corpus and former Asia representative to the UN Expert Mechanism Jose Melencio Molintas from the government’s proscription case before the Manila regional trial court did not mean that they are no longer linked to the terrorism cases.

He explained that while the DOJ recently amended its petition to declare the CPP and NPA as terrorists before Manila RTC Branch 19, all officials and members of the communist groups are still included in the case.

“The amended petition has reduced the names of individuals from 649 to just eight names who are firmly identified with the CPP-NPA, and the rest are lumped, without mentioning their names, under a general allegation,” the DOJ chief said in an interview.

Guevarra stressed that while the list submitted by the DOJ was significantly cut, “the respondents in the petition for proscription have remained the same – the CPP and the NPA.”

He recalled that the 649 names stated in the original petition were “only for the purpose of serving summons as the CPP and NPA have no addresses and the named individuals were identified by intelligence authorities as members of said organizations.”

The DOJ chief pointed out that the objective of the petition is merely to declare the communist groups as terrorist organizations.

“Once declared as such, any individual who may later be identified as a member or supporter of, or associated in any manner with, such organizations will face the consequences under the Human Security Act,” Guevarra explained.

With this, he hinted that Ocampo, Baylosis, Corpus and Molintas as well as the over 600 names included in the original list of DOJ could still possibly be charged for terrorism – once their links to CPP and NPA are established.

The four were dropped after Manila RTC Branch 19 Presiding Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar declared them as non-parties in the case in a ruling last year and ordered the DOJ to just serve the summons through publication in a newspaper.

In the amended petition recently filed, the DOJ listed only eight CPP and NPA officers – CPP founding chairman Jose Maria Sison, Jorge Madlos of the NPA National Operations Command; Jaime Padilla, a supposed leader of the Melito Glor Command; Francisco Fernandez, an alleged secretary of the Negros Region Committee; Cleofe Lagtapon, a Southeast Front head of the same committee; Antonio Cabanatan, secretary of the Mindanao Commission; Leonido Nabong, head of the Western Mindanao Regional Party Military Commission; and Myrna Sularte, secretary of the Northeastern Mindanao Regional Committee. – With Edu Punay