Palace backs Senate probe into NPA’s recruitment in schools

FILE: Presidential Human Rights Committee Secretariat (PHRCS) Executive Director, Undersecretary Severo Catura. (Photo: PCOO OSec Media via PNA)

MANILA— The Office of the President supports the Senate inquiry into the missing minors who were allegedly recruited by communist groups, a ranking official said Wednesday as he underscored Malacañang’s commitment to protecting the crucial human right of Filipinos to family life.

“We strongly support this hearing, even as we commend the mothers who have found the courage to stand up against these local terrorists who have taken away their children,” said Undersecretary Severo Catura, executive director of the Presidential Human Rights Committee Secretariat, in a statement.

“We honor these parents – vulnerable victims themselves of these terrorists – for voicing out their revulsion over these human rights abuses,” he added.

The official also scored the communist movement, including its “front organizations for losing all moral ascendancy to portray themselves as human rights defenders and vilify the Philippine government.”

“We repeat: They are nothing but terrorists and human rights abusers,” he said referring to the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA).

The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.

On Wednesday, Senator Ronald dela Rosa presided over the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs joint hearing with National Defense and Security on the issue of missing minors who are allegedly recruited by communist groups.

During the probe, the former rebels faced the Senate, testifying that some of the organization’s members were introduced into the movement while they were still attending school. Some parents whose children were recruited to the organization were also present lamenting the fate of their kids.

Crucial human rights

Catura said the crucial human rights to family life calls on every individual “to claim respect for his or her family and to keep relationships in that same family strong.”

“The ongoing Senate hearing on the recruitment of children as child warriors by these local terrorists is more than just an inquiry in aid of legislation,” he said.

“It is a strong assertion of the State’s duty to protect a crucial human right – every Filipino citizen’s right to family life,” he added.

Catura said this right obligates the State to protect family relations from intrusion, especially incursions that threaten the right to life and liberty of their children who are considered vulnerable persons themselves.

“This covers every parent’s right to be protected against the menace of terrorism that threatens to separate – or has already separated – them from their children. The Duterte administration is a champion of this right,” he said.

Citing Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Catura said: “The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State”

The same tenet is laid out in Article 23 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights signed by the Philippines in 1986, which also underscores that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honor and reputation; and [that] everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.”

He noted that discussions at the Senate hearing have unmasked the terrorist persuasion of the CPP-NPA and its front organizations before the public.

“For too long have the local Communist terrorists, through their front organizations, portrayed themselves as so-called human rights advocates and defenders, and the government as the evil human rights violator. This has now ended,” Catura said.