DILG to UP students: ‘Gov’t is not an evil monster’

MANILA, Philippines — “Government is not the evil monster that you portray us to be,” Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Undersecretary and Spokesman Jonathan Malaya said Wednesday after students of the University of the Philippines (UP) walked out of their classes to protest alleged campus militarization.

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Malaya said there is nothing wrong with student activism but noted that they will interfere if the youth is being encouraged to engage in armed rebellion against government forces.

“When you use the democratic space provided by the Constitution as a front or excuse to recruit, train, and wage armed struggle against duly constituted authority, then that becomes a criminal act and must be prevented by the State,” Malaya said in a statement.

Malaya added that they “are alarmed by the intensification of communist recruitment in schools given that the communist rebel groups are targeting minors who are in Senior High School.”

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Interior Secretary Eduardo Año previously warned that some student organizations, including those from UP and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines are being infiltrated by communist groups. /muf