Disqualification of ‘subversive’ party-list groups sought

MANILA, Philippines — Two Senate committees have recommended to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to disqualify party-list groups involved in subversive activities and authorities should investigate and file charges against those allegedly recruiting minors and college students to join communist rebels.

The Senate committees on public order and dangerous drugs and national defense and security, in their joint 41-page Committee Report No. 10 released on Oct. 1, also urged the Department of Education (DepEd) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) to tighten security policies in schools and investigate teachers involved in the reported recruitment of minors to join the New People’s Army (NPA).

The two panels conducted an inquiry into the case of missing college students who were found by their distressed parents to have been participating in rallies staged by left-leaning groups, and eventually joining the NPA.

“The youth/student sector is the prospective recruits of the communist groups and its affiliates. The cycle employed is ‘Arouse, Organize and Mobilize.’ This is the cycle wherein students are invited to lectures/fora/discussions on campus issues, which will later tackle more serious and relevant social problems that would instigate restlessness and agitation among the young people,” the report stated.

“Indoctrination of communist ideology then takes place. Thereafter, students are invited to undergo ‘immersion programs’ where they personally experience dealing with poor communities and realize the ‘inability’ of the government to uplift the lives of the people in the countryside,” it read.

“Those students who choose to return to school after their ‘exposure’ to the rural areas continue the agitation and recruitment propaganda with other students, while those who choose to stay with the NPAs are further indoctrinated, eventually become hardcore members and are mobilized in the armed stuggle in the countryside,” the report said.

Aside from improvement of security of colleges and universities, the committee also recommended greater police visibility in such institutions and more dialogue between authorities, students and their mentors.

The panels also recommended amendments to Republic Act 11188 or the Special Protection of Children in Situations of Armed Conflict Act to include a provision that would clearly define the recruitment process among children in schools, as well as in other places, by insurgent groups in order to expand the coverage of “recruitment” of children in armed conflict.

It also proposed amendments to Republic Act 9208 or the Anti Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, to consider recruitment of children for the purpose of engaging him or her in armed combat as falling within the ambit of “qualified trafficking in persons” where a higher penalty is meted out to those who will be held liable.