Source: Captured enemy-documents |
In August 7, 2019, news reports coming from the Senate
sent shockwaves to the nation. Emotional mothers spoke of how
Leftist groups recruited their daughters, who eventually ran
away from home to work for the organizations full time.
One mother, Relissa Lucena, recounted how her then 16-year old daughter was recruited by Anakbayan, a militant youth
organization of the CPP-NPA-NDF. Lucena said her daughter
stopped attending senior high school at the Far Eastern
University to focus on the organization. Despite her many
warnings, her daughter remained active. In one instance, she left
home for three days. The worried Lucena, a founding member
of Hands Off Our Children (HOOC) group that advocates for
preventing recruitment of youth and students to the CPP-NPA-
NDF and to its front organizations, reported it to the police.
When her daughter came back and realized what her mother
had done, she tagged her mother as an “enemy” (Ager, 2019).
“She said I was an enemy. She said I should think that I no
longer have a child. I kneeled in front of my child. I begged her
to stay and for us to fix the situation,” Lucena said on national
television.
Despite her constant begging, her daughter left.
“She left a letter. In it, she said I was a bad parent. That
letter crushed my heart to the point that I almost committed
suicide,” Lucena said.
A week later, two of the missing students went public on
social media and decried their parents’ allegations. They said
they ran away from their homes because of family issues not
because they were forcibly recruited (Madarang, 2019). Of
course, they spoke under the banner of the militant groups
they now represent, the same militant groups that refused to let
another “missing” child go (Tuquero, 2019).
The news seemed shocking to some, but for Victor it was
quite reminiscent of his own recruitment and his recruitment of
other youth. Victor’s memories came rushing back.
--THE WARS WITHIN (2020)