DILG vows return of ‘communist-recruited’ students

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) yesterday vowed to bring back students allegedly recruited by communist fronts to their families.

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said the DILG would do everything in its power to recover the students working with what he described as communist groups fronting as “progressive pro-poor organizations.”

“These organizations are brainwashing the children and destroying the youth of our country,” said Año, nicknamed “Rebel Hunter” for his intelligence work for the army where he scored some of the biggest arrests of Communist Party of the Philippines’ leaders.

Año, a retired general, was also credited for the neutralization of President Duterte’s known friend, New People’s Army (NPA) commander Leonardo Pitao or Kumander Parago, who was killed in a military encounter in June 2015.

He claimed that students are turned into rebels to fight government security forces in the mountains and countryside, some of whom end up dead in skirmishes.

“Minors are easily lured that’s why we will help their parents to retrieve their children from terrorists,” he said in a statement.

He said about 500 to 1,000 students “undergo countryside exposure” during summer, about a tenth of which could possibly be drawn into the armed conflict between the government and the NPA.

The DILG is also currently pushing for a review of memorandum between state universities and the government, which disallows uniformed personnel on campuses.

“What’s happening now is so many schools are deeply infiltrated by the CPP-NPA through their front organizations. These rebels have corresponding member organizations in schools that’s why we need to have a tight watch,” Año said in Filipino.

Maj. Gen. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, director of the National Capital Region Police Office, said students have nothing to fear when police officers are present on campuses.

“If this will prompt visibility of officers there, I think it will help the youth, students and (we will) secure the university,” he said, citing the case of the University of the Philippines Diliman campus in Quezon City where police and military are not allowed to enter its premises.

Eleazar believes the deployment of police officers will help prevent communist rebels from recruiting students and not curtail the right of students as well.

Professors on watch list

Año said professors are also included in the intelligence watch list of both the Armed Forces of the Philipines and the Philippine National Police (PNP) on the alleged students’ recruitment.

“Ang professors alam na nila ang pinapasok nila (professors know what they are getting into), but they are playing around democratic spaces. Professors are on the radar and watchlist of intel community of the AFP and the PNP,” he said.

The issue of alleged communist recruitment in schools surfaced after parents of students allegedly drafted by leftist groups gave their testimony at a Senate hearing. 

He said that the DILG is looking to have engagement and dialogue with school authorities so that they will be aware of the supposed modus of the CPP on student recruitment in universities.

There will be no permanent police presence in schools but better coordination with law enforcement agencies, he said, would help combat the alleged infiltration of the CPP in student organizations. – With Romina Cabrera