DILG downplays militarization on campuses ‘figment of imagination’
Credit to Author: DARWIN PESCO| Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2019 08:31:16 +0000
THE Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) on Wednesday branded allegations of “militarization” in schools a “figment of the imagination gone overdrive” and “classic communist propaganda,” which used the politics of fear to portray government as a repressive monster to earn political pogi points from students in order to ‘arouse, organize, mobilize’ the youth sector,” DILG Undersecretary and spokesman Jonathan Malaya said in a press statement.
Malaya said there was nothing wrong with student activism and in fact, all the Department wanted to address was Communist recruitment in schools.
Malaya added that using youth idealism and dynamism to encourage armed rebellion against the State was “completely unacceptable.”
“Criticism, protest and resistance is part and parcel of democratic politics,” Malaya said, emphasizing that government is not the “evil monster.”
“We are your parents, siblings, friends and countrymen who love our country as much as you do,” he added.
DILG expressed alarm over reports of alleged missing students who were recruited to join leftist groups and also that the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has now been targeting minors who had been in Senior High School.
DILG Secretary Eduardo Año said that some student organizations from the University of the Philippines and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, have been infiltrated by communist rebels.
Año said a dialogue with state university executives, along with the police and student organizations, would help for their awareness campaign against the recruitment strategies of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the CPP.