ANOTHER YOUTH, WASTED

The nation stood aghast at yet another star that drastically fell in the grounds of the Reds—the death of Kemberly Jul Luna, a former youth activist and MSU-IIT student leader, indeed appalled and sorrowed many. The brainy beauty was fatally hit with a bullet that went through her chest and nape in the encounter of her NPA unit and the 8th IB in Brgy Concepcion, Valencia City, Bukidnon.
"Kimay is a revolutionary model who should be emulated by the youth and students and all of those longing for an end to the grave sufferings of the Filipino people,” the CPP flagrantly stated. After Kimay’s death, the CPP even had the guts to exploit it as a way of propagating their revolutionary struggle. Clearly, we need not a profound understanding of how the Reds work—they inculcate wrong ideas to the youth, agitate their innate sense of patriotism, anger their hearts through issues like that of Kemberley’s death and push them to the thought that waging armed revolution is the only way they can attain democracy. A flawed way of educating the youth will cause more to die.
Kemberly was Adriane, Joshua, or Ma’am Nurse to the people she had worked with in the highlands. She was the loving and ever-charming “Kimay” to her family and friends. For her NPA unit, she was a revolutionary student who willfully traded her comfortable life to be one with the peasants, but whose life ended in the arms of the NPA who vowed to fight for the people’s democracy— including hers. But what kind of democracy lies in the death of Kemberly and the many youth who have trodden the same road as hers? Surely, she could have spent more time with her family and friends; she could have used her talents more and shared it with others; given her brilliance, she could’ve been one of the next leaders of our country; and she could have helped more peasants, more poor, and more people. All these could have been possible if she was not led and deceived by those who are eyeing to use her brilliant mind to their advantage. “…Her early death was a great loss to all who knew and loved her,” the CPP said. But to the country, her early death is a signal to put an end to the erroneous abuse of the youth.
Cliché has it that the youth is the future of our country. Thus, their death is a great loss to the hope of our nation to become better. Just like a simple math problem that needs answers, the country in despair amid social and economic problems needs solutions and not the deaths of its future generation.