The NPAs and their ideals

Having partnered with the Armed Forces of the Philippines  over the last four years for a Cebu-based youth volunteer group, I have learned to know the many challenges that our soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines have been facing. And on top on the long list is the New People’s Army.

On a random musing yesterday, the job of our soldiers is one most noble and selfless professions. It requires courage and commitment to join the Army. It’s no easy to task to be away from your family in order to serve the many.

The combat against the NPAs has dragged on for almost half a century of bloody war among our soldiers. Hundreds of them are deployed to the secluded communities in Basilan and Zamboanga. Many soldiers lost their lives in serving our country. But the NPAs are still around, fighting against the government and even abusing civilians.

“It’s their ideology that drives the NPA to fight against the government. It is their perception that the government isn’t helping them. It is their current state, the feeling of being poor and incapable, that continues to drive them to the battlefield,” a friend once shared with me during a meet-up.

A soldiers, who has been serving the Army for three years now, also shared that he used to be an informant on the ground in a far-flung said NPA community. There, he saw what he didn’t expect to see, among other things: homes with a sack of rice and dried fish, and a few appliances. It seemed to be an ironic image of being poor, a defeaning shout of the NPAs, the reason of their struggle for almost five decades.

NPAs, as some said, even collect “revolutionary taxes” from poor farmers. I once heard from the news that somewhere in Bukidnon, a passenger bus was set afire by the NPAs because they haven’t received their share of revolutionary tax.

I keep on asking myself if these selfish acts of killing and abusing our poor fellow Filipinos would be the same ideology that the NPAs and the  coming generations would be fighting for. What would happen if the NPAs would grow more in numbers would corrupt the minds of more innocent children and youth?

For almost 50 years, yes that long enough, the NPAs are still driven with the same belief and ideals of their predecessors: extreme poverty, appalling inequality, injustice, unfairness of our government. Even after 15 Philippine presidents, these issues have plagued forever in our system, which eventually resulted to the impasse of peace negotiations.

For almost 50 years, they have brainwashed every young and innocent man and woman to join a battle they couldn’t win.

The issue of the NPAs has been rooted since I was born. The stories of the “great and brave leaders” of NPAs have been passed on for generations. The concept of carrying arms to fight the government seems to be the first lesson every child knows even before he starts to walk.

I challenge the communists to come up with a concerted solution for a long lasting peace for the next generations to reap, to unmask your true identity, to get out from your shells and capes, and to dress your children with the truth you have forsaken them to gain.

Chrisley Ann B. Hinayas

Concerned youth of Labangon, Cebu City