Philippine children of uniformed officers targeted as ‘easy prey’ by communists seeking to infiltrate security agencies

By recruiting and radicalising children of army and police officers, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) hopes to gain full access to the country’s security agencies

CPP insurgents and followers were labelled ‘terrorists’ by the previous Duterte government, and new President Marcos has yet to declare if he will hold peace talks with them

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Guerrillas of the New People’s Army at the Sierra Madre mountain range, east of Manila. File photo: AFP

Published: 8:00pm, 5 Jul 2022

The children of Filipino military and police officers have for decades been “easy targets” for radicalisation and recruitment by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, say experts, as concerns grow over the organisation deemed one of the country’s “most serious” security threats.

Communist rebels have waged an armed insurgency against Manila for more than five decades, and the targeting of children of uniformed officers has been a way for the CPP to gain access to all branches of the Philippines’ security agencies, says Mimi Fabe, a professor in financial terrorism and transnational organised crime at the Philippine National Police College.

Communist fighters also attempt to radicalise those children “so that they can sow divisions” within family members of the law enforcement, said Fabe, who has spent 10 years researching the recruitment of youth and children in areas across the Philippines where communist insurgents have launched attacks.

“The children of the police and military have a middle-class upbringing, and they are well-educated. They can use these children to spread the communist propaganda among their classmates and their friends since they deal with intellectuals,” she said.

Young fighters of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the CPP, at the Sierra Madre mountains of Luzon region. File photo: EPA

Fabe cited Philippine author and journalist Joan Andrea Toledo as an example. In her book Crossing the Red Line, Toledo wrote that her father Antonio Lim Toledo and her uncles were allegedly “targeted” for recruitment when they were young, “because they were children of an Airforce officer”.

Toledo’s father and his brothers had access to all military and police camps and installations across the country.