Court junks custody plea of teen rebel's grandma

TACLOBAN CITY - A local court has denied a grandmother's plea for custody of her 12-year-old grandson, an alleged cadre of the communist New People's Army (NPA).

After being captured by the military last March, Aram de la Cruz stunned his captors by demonstrating his skill in dismantling and reassembling an M-16 automatic rifle, and by reaffirming his belief in the communist ideology.

The military earlier said that De la Cruz's parents, 13-year-old sister and two other persons were killed in a clash with soldiers in Southern Leyte. De la Cruz's father, Aniceto, allegedly led the NPA's section committee of the Leyte Front.

De la Cruz was shortly turned over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

Last March, the court turned down a plea from the boy's 65-year-old paternal grandmother, Concepcion de la Cruz, asking custody.

On April 7, the elder De la Cruz, backed by human rights groups, asked for reconsideration through lawyer Felidito Dacut. She said she had a right to substitute parental authority as stated in the Family Code.

The DSWD, supported by the boy's maternal grandmother, said it had legal custody.

In his decision penned on May 4 and received by both parties last Friday, Judge Santos Gil upheld his earlier decision, saying the boy's parents were liable for his welfare.

"He may not be a combatant, courier, guide or spy of the CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines)-NPA. Yet, it cannot be denied that the young boy at the age of 12 was tolerated, if not allowed, by his late parents to carry a gun," Gil wrote.

"He is not a war bounty. But it is cruelty to humanity if he is not turned over, as mandated by law, to the Department of Social Welfare and Development."

A fact-finding mission, led by the United Church of Christ of the Philippines, recently said that Aram's parents and sister were massacred by soldiers, not killed in a gunfight as the military claimed.