MANILA, Philippines — The police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group filed additional criminal complaints for the recruitment of minors against Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, CIDG director Maj. Gen. Albert Ignatius Ferro said yesterday.
Sison, along with Anakbayan members Lean Porquia and Karen Edaniel, were charged before the Department of Justice (DOJ) with violating Republic Act 10364 or the Expanded Trafficking in Person Act and RA 7610 or the Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act, Ferro said.
The charges are based on a complaint by a 29-year-old man who claimed he was recruited by the CPP into becoming a rebel when he was a 16-year-old college student.
The former rebel said he was first recruited by Edaniel and Porquia as a member of the League of Filipino Students (LFS) in 2007. He later became joined the underground movement.
Ferro said the complainant left the group in 2018 and decided to file charges because of the hardships and exploitation he experienced.
On Friday, the CIDG filed similar charges against Sison and a certain Vince Hugo Villena based on a complaint filed by a 24-year-old man who claimed to have been recruited into the communist movement when he was a first-year journalism student in 2015.
The complainant said he was recruited into the LFS and joined rallies at the Liwasang Bonifacio and Mendiola in Manila.
The complainant said he underwent “radicalization courses” and recruited students of a university in Valenzuela City, according to Ferro.
He joined a New People’s Army sub-regional command in Davao del Norte and transferred to other guerrilla fronts in Mindanao. The NPA is the CPP’s armed wing.
He said he filed charges because he realized he was “deceived” and “was made to believe that the only way to change Philippine society is through armed revolution.”
Repeatedly raped?
Last month, the CIDG filed charges against Sison and suspected NPA leaders for allegedly recruiting a minor who was later raped.
Ferro said the woman, identified only as Ka Shane, lodged the human trafficking and child abuse complaints with the DOJ against Sison and Redsa Balatan, her alleged recruiter.
The CIDG also filed rape charges against alleged NPA commanders Rey dela Peña and Joel Caliwliw.
Sison is on a self-imposed exile in the Netherlands while Balatan, Dela Peña and Caliwliw are detained at the Nueva Ecija Provincial Jail in Cabanatuan City, Bambang Police Station in Nueva Vizcaya and Bureau of Jail Management and Penology Provincial Jail in Solano, Nueva Vizcaya, respectively.
In her complaint, Shane said she was recruited when she was 14 years old, first as a member of Anakbayan. She later joined the NPA’s Caraballo Guerrilla Front covering the areas of Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya and Pangasinan.
Shane accused Dela Peña, her commander, of raping her twice and Caliwliw four times in 2018.
She also accused her squad leader, a certain Alvin Soria alias Ka Bunso, of raping her.
Ferro said the former rebel brought up the sexual assaults on her to higher-ups in the NPA.
“She was dismayed because instead of getting the justice she deserved, she was mocked, maligned as somebody who has post-traumatic stress disorder and a sex addict, and she was likewise branded as mentally deranged,” Ferro said.
She told police that she decided to leave the communist movement when the promise of medical assistance for her did not materialize.