MANILA, Philippines — Military spokesman Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade claimed that aside from the University of the Philippines (UP), student recruitment for the communist rebellion is present in at least 18 schools within Metro Manila.
Among the universities he named were the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), Far Eastern University (FEU), University of Santo Tomas (UST), De La Salle University (DLSU), Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM) and University of Makati, among others.
The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) spokesman asserted that communist recruiters have also been targeting high schools, according to military monitoring since 2018.
The military official urged parents to be vigilant and monitor their children’s activities so that they may not be recruited by communist groups.
Parlade maintained that UP is one of the most active communist recruitment hubs in the country. He said in an interview on dzBB that they traced “cadres” to the UP.
Parlade made the claims a few days after the government terminated the 1989 UP-DND accord that kept state forces out of campuses for decades. Several sectors have criticized the move, raising concerns that it might infringe on academic freedom and dissent.