Anakbayan to AFP: Not only 18 schools are against Duterte admin

FILE: Students taking part in the nationwide rally during the 46th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law (Photo: Ginno Alcantara/Philippine Canadian Inquirer)

Youth group Anakbayan found it ‘appalling’ that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) only identified 18 schools that are against the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte.

The military, through Brigadier General Antonio Parlade, Jr., disclosed their list of Metro Manila schools where it said the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has been recruiting students for the supposed “Red October” plot against the Chief Executive.

Among the schools included in the list is the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman and Manila, Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), University of Santo Tomas (UST), De La Salle University (DLSU), and Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP).

[READ: AFP’s ‘red-tagging’ of Metro Manila schools ‘endangers’ students — CHR]

However, Anakbayan believed that there are more schools which are against the Duterte administration but are not included in the AFP’s list.

“We find it appalling that they have only identified 18 schools. Definitely, the list is longer because youth and students all over the country are fed up with this atrocious regime!” Anakbayan Secretary General Einstein Recedes said on Friday, October 5.

Recedes added that the AFP does not need to waste the taxpayer’s money by spending millions of their intelligence funds to look for those who are against Duterte’s regime.

Instead, Recedes said the military just has to search on social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, “to see how furious the youth are against price hikes, killings, and tyranny and how willing the youth are to mobilize against Duterte’s dictatorship.”

In a separate statement, Recedes also hit back at Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, Director General Oscar Albayalde who earlier slammed students of state universities and colleges (SUCs) who are “going against” the government.

“In state universities, you are given free education by the government and yet hindi ka pa nag-gra-graduate (have not graduated), you are already going against the same government that gives you free education,” Albayalde told reporters on Thursday.

In response to this, Recedes said that those youth who are upholding the rights and welfare of the Filipino people are “way nobler than that of this corrupt institution.” He explained that the said institution serves and protects “the interests of Duterte and the ruling elite.”

He reminded the PNP chief that the money used to pay for the SUCs’ students is not coming from Duterte’s pocket but from the Filipino people.

AFP spokesman Brigadier General Edgard Arevalo had maintained that some schools in their list have been and widely known to have been used “as fora for communist recruitment.” But despite saying this, he admitted that several of them are still subject of continuing validation.

Arevalo also stressed that in disclosing the names of the Metro Manila schools, they did not mean to brand them as communists, but the military just wanted to “create awareness among our people especially parents who were complaining and asking for our help.”

Meanwhile, some officials and organizations of the schools included in the AFP’s list had denied that there is an alleged communist recruitment on their respective campuses.