BY DOMINIQUE GABRIEL G. BAÑAGA
BACOLOD City – The Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry Division (3ID) and the Regional Task Force 6 to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (RTF6-ELCAC) slammed the New People’s Army (NPA) for using child soldiers.
An encounter between government troops and rebels in Candoni, Negros Occidental earlier this week resulted to the death of a 16-year-old NPA fighter.
The 3ID commander, Major General Benedict Arevalo, condemn the NPA’s recruitment of minors.
Using children in the armed struggle is a clear violation of the International Humanitarian law, he stressed.
Atty. Flosemer Chris Gonzales, spokesperson of the RTF6-ELCAC, meanwhile, described the NPA’s recruiting minors as “the worst among the worst of criminals in our country.”
Gonzales said those supporting the NPA blindly and enabling them are no better than the rebelss.
“They are robbing our youth of their innocence, and forcing them to live a life of hatred, violence, abuse, fear and terror,” said Gonzales.
Gonzales called on the people of Western Visayas and the entire nation to stand in solidarity against the NPA.
A 16-year-old lad was killed in a gun battle with government troops in Barangay Gatuslao, Candoni.
“Ka Kisap/Boyca” was a resident of Sitio Maabon, Barangay Cabadiangan, Sipalay City, Negros Occidental, according to Brigadier General Leonardo Peña, commander of the 302nd Infantry Brigade (302IB).
The minor was a member of Squad 2, Platoon 3 of the NPA’s southwestern front, said Peña.
“We are dismayed by the wasted life of a youth who was made a ‘child soldier’. The NPA is poisoning the minds of their young recruits to topple our democratic form of government,” he said.
Soldiers from the Army’s 15th Infantry Battalion trooped to Barangay Gatuslao around 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday after receiving information that rebels were there extorting from the villagers.
The gun battle was sporadic and lasted for some 35 minutes until the rebels retreated.
From the clash site, Army soldiers recovered an M16 rifle with defaced serial number, a .45 pistol, an anti-personnel mine, five short magazines for an M16 assault rifle, and assorted ammunition of various calibers.
They also found three kilos of ammonium nitrate, a commercial radio, a gun sling, three backpacks, and subversive documents.
According to Peña, the Philippine Army “will be relentless in our campaign to totally end five decades of menace and terroristic activities of the communist NPA terrorists in the country side.”/PN
