PNP: 168 students joined NPA from 2014 to 2024

THE PNP yesterday said that 168 students were recruited by various organizations in 102 educational institutions to join the communist movement from 2014 to the present.

Col. Randy Arceo of the PNP Directorate for Operations bared this during a Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs inquiry into the continuous radicalization and recruitment of students in educational institutions to the local communist terrorist groups.

Based on information reaching the PNP, Arceo said 123 were recruited in colleges and universities, 34 in high school, and 11 from elementary schools.

He said 33 of those recruited have been killed in police operations, 43 have been arrested, and 93 have surrendered. Arceo said those killed in police operations were students from UP Diliman, PUP Manila, UP Manila, UP Tacloban, UP Cebu, UP Los Banos, UP Clark, UP Baguio, De La Salle University, Isabela State University, and UP Mindanao.

He said the schools with the highest number of recruited students are the Putian National High School in Cuartero, Capiz; University of the Philippines-Diliman; Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Manila, UP-Manila, and UP Tacloban.

Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, who chairs the panel, urged educational institutions to have their guidance counselors profile students who are vulnerable to recruitment by communist groups.

He said recruiters of the New Peoples’ Army are roaming around school campuses looking for students “very ripe for picking.”

He said guidance counselors should become efficient profilers so that those who seem vulnerable can be properly guided.

“When you a student who is somewhat intelligent – if he or she is from UP, they are really intelligent – the quiet type, and seems to be against the world, they are the ones who are easy to recruit to become extremists, bear firearms, and join the NPA,” he said.

Nellie Jo Aujero-Regalado, UP Visayas legal office chief, said university officials have raised concerns their students are being red-tagged simply because they are studying at UP.

“Some of our students experience discrimination or they are harassed because they are being red-tagged. Pag UP student, parang they are identified, ‘terorista