End state violence vs children, rights advocates urge

MANILA, Philippines—Child welfare activists have slammed state-led operations in the provinces that have given rise to numbers of children being killed or victimized, even as they urged the Aquino administration to stop such atrocities.

In a press briefing on Saturday, child rights advocates said the Aquino administration’s counterinsurgency plan code-named Oplan Bayanihan continued to “wreak havoc on rural communities,” affecting mostly minor victims.

This year alone four children were killed in separate military actions in Laguna and Camarines Norte, according to Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC) head Jacqueline Ruiz.

Ruiz said that children in communities where the Armed Forces of the Philippines conducted its operations suffered intense emotional trauma and social withdrawal and were uprooted from their regular lives and routines.

The CRC has recorded five killings, 17 frustrated killings, two rape cases, 10 attacks on schools and eight cases of children branded as child soldiers since President Aquino assumed office in 2010.

One of the latest incidents was the Feb. 25 shooting of two children and their father in Labo, Camarines Norte, after soldiers allegedly fired at the house of the Mancera family where a rebel was resting.

On Feb. 16, a 15-year-old boy and his adult companion were shot after being tagged as rebels, but their relatives said the victims were just hunting for bats and frogs to sell.

The child rights advocates also cited cases of military units reportedly occupying daycare centers in Northern Samar and Ormoc City since late last year, prompting the children to skip school.

The mother of the two Mancera children killed on Feb. 25 made a short but angry appeal for the military to stop the violence.

“Please make those soldiers stop so they won’t be able to do such crimes to us,” said Lourdes Mancera.

For her part, Christine Guevarra of Hustisya, a rights group against extrajudicial killings, said: “It should be the children playing with PSP (portable PlayStation), not the President.”

The advocates, in an apparent jab at the administration, struck a mindless, “noynoying” pose to stress their point.

A man in a yellow shirt put on a mask which resembled the President and lounged around a table looking like he had nothing to do.

The “noynoying” pose first caught fire on Thursday as militant students, in a bid to go around the antiplanking threat of the authorities, mimicked what they called the “do-nothing” attitude of Mr. Aquino on issues like the oil price hikes and tuition increases.