NPA PROVED THEMSELVES TO BE ANTI-YOUTH

While most of us are sleeping out the fatigue of the holiday cheers not to mention remembering the reason for celebrating such an event which is the birth of Jesus Christ, a group of rebels were patiently waiting to carry out a sinister plan against an unguarded public high school in Tanauan in the province of Quezon. Excited to mark their 41st founding anniversary, four armed NPA members eagerly burned eight of the nine classrooms of the Doongan Ilaya National High School in Barangay Doongan Ilaya as early as one o’clock in the morning of December 26, 2009. The incident which totally razed to the ground eight classrooms cost an estimated damage of 3.5 million pesos.
In an apparent attempt to further show their aggressive nature and earn the approval of their top leader, Jose Maria Sison, the four rebels even raised an inverted flag - the red part flown above - on the school’s flag pole. The atrocious act which was launched despite a pre-agreed ceasefire between the rebels and the government from December 24 to December 26 was rightly condemned by the local residents and by the very students of Barangay Doongan Ilaya who were literally robbed of their future when the rebels carried out the arson.
Despite agreeing to the ceasefire, the Communist Party of the Philippines still allowed their minions to launch atrocities, thus proving that the Party is quite treacherous and has a backhanded nature with regard to negotiating peace with the government. Significantly, this was also the second attack which was instigated by the rebels in Quezon province this month alone. The first being the raid against a police station in San Narciso on December 20 which was pulled off by 25 armed rebels who conceitedly pretended to be media practitioners and military personnel and thereafter carted away high-powered firearms and forcibly took the personal belongings and money of police authorities detailed at said station.
Not being satisfied with merely fighting government troops, the NPA rebels have now included innocent civilians as their victims. By burning the eight classrooms, hundreds of high school students enrolled at the public school will no longer have a place to hold their classes when school resumes on January 5. By instigating the attack, the rebels only proved that they are not the protector but the actual oppressor of the people. They also proved that they give no such importance in the education of our youth and only see them as warm bodies for their armed struggle given that they have incessantly armed minors with rifles and led them to clashes with the military. Such acts only attest to their anti-youth stance and their hostility as a movement. A challenge to Representative Raymond Palatino of Kabataan Pinoy is now necessary. A challenge to immediately condemn the act and show that he, together with senatorial wannabes Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza, are not the protectors of these ruthless rebels.