HANDS OFF Student council leaders and members of student organizations stage a protest rally at the University of the Philippines Baguio in this photo taken on Nov. 8, 2022, to denounce a lecturer who Red-tagged their teachers at a National Service Training Program online class. —VINCENT CABREZA
BAGUIO CITY—Youth organizations have urged government educators to scrutinize the materials being introduced to students through anticommunist forums that are apparently being allowed in high schools.
Louise Montenegro, Cordillera coordinator of the Kabataan party list, said they wanted professional educators and school officials to “intervene in these forums [where anticommunist materials] are being presented to students as young as high school.”
These materials are “very graphic, triggering and traumatizing,” said Montenegro in an interview on Saturday.
In 2022, four high schools in this city were among the nine educational institutions that have hosted orientation lectures and discussion sessions, according to a position paper that was transmitted on Feb. 22 by Kabataan, the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) and Youth Act Now Against Tyranny to the Commission on Higher Education (CHEd) and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).
‘Screened’
Among these discussions were lectures on “Communist Terrorist Group Youth and Student Recruitment” and “The 7 Stages of Deceptive Recruitment of the Communist Terrorist Groups.”
Four other similar forums were held at several Baguio universities and an elementary school.
The youth groups’ position paper sent to CHEd and CHR claimed that the forums discussed the “brainwashing techniques” and “youth exploitation” allegedly being committed by young activists.
“Worse are the pictures and videos of bloody and slain New People’s Army members” that have been presented to young audiences, according to the paper.
But teachers have been instructed to “check the materials being shared by resource speakers” who undertake forums organized by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, said Estela Cariño, Cordillera director of the Department of Education (DepEd).
In a separate interview on Monday, Cariño said these “orientations” were assembled purely for 16-year-old to 18-year-old students in senior high school, and “all the materials were screened by the school.”
Cariño said the DepEd is currently validating the reported inclusion of a grade school.
The youth groups emphasized in their paper that exposing young minds “to explicit and graphic content without warning is triggering and ultimately unnecessary.”
‘Baseless’
“Showing images of bloody corpses and blatantly describing instances of violence, war, and even sexual assault [which government agents have associated with] youth organizations are baseless and pointless,” according to the position paper.
The paper was signed by Montenegro; Franz Calanio, the NUSP chair for Baguio and Benguet province; and Al-Sapphira Barroga, Youth Act Now Baguio-Benguet convenor.
During the city council’s session on Feb. 13, Councilor Arthur Allad-iw, a former journalist, quizzed DepEd officials about an anticommunist lecture conducted allegedly at a Baguio high school, and was told the topics involved patriotism and the dangers of drug use.
Neutral schools
Allad-iw told the Inquirer that espousing anticommunist tenets may violate an understanding under international law that schools are politically neutral.
An official of the local Parents-Teachers Association said they were told that communist recruiters have “penetrated even grade schools,” which explained why government agencies have aggressively conducted anticommunist forums for teens.
But the source, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, also wanted parental supervision over such propaganda from the government or even from left-leaning groups, adding that these materials should be age-appropriate.
The position paper also outlined the continuing harassment and Red-tagging that have targeted Baguio youth activists, despite a court order that bars the police from bullying them.
The youth groups were referring to a 2021 writ of amparo that was issued against the Cordillera police by Judge Emmanuel Cacho Rasing of the Baguio Regional Trial Court Branch 3.
Rasing’s three-page order prohibits the police from uploading videos, photographs or commentaries over social media that “Red-tag” Montenegro, and three other students and graduates of the University of the Philippines Baguio. INQ