The Marcos Jr. regime desperately attempts to portray itself as a champion of children’s rights. However, the very opposite holds true – under Marcos Jr., the Philippine reactionary state is the foremost perpetrator of violence and abuses against children.
The Makabayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (Patriotic Movement of New Women or MAKIBAKA) strongly refuted and denounced the Marcos regime’s recent claim that the Philippines can now be removed from the watchlist of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Children and Armed Conflict. This assertion, MAKIBAKA argued, is nothing more than an attempt to whitewash the regime’s extensive record of children’s rights violations.
The MAKIBAKA called on the UN-SRSG to scrutinize the Marcos administration’s reports more critically, warning that these documents are riddled with deception and distortions designed to conceal the brutal realities faced by children, their families, and entire communities plagued by state-sponsored attacks. Rather than ensuring their protection, the reactionary state forces children into the frontlines of conflict through relentless militarization, forced evacuations, indiscriminate bombings and even subjecting children to extrajudicial killings. Many of these children and their families are driven to resistance, not out of choice, but as a direct response to defend their communities against state repression.
Contrary to Marcos Jr.’s self-serving propaganda, reports from Ang Bayan expose the systemic violations committed by the Marcos Jr. regime across the country. These accounts illustrate how the reactionary government continues to terrorize the most vulnerable sector of society while claiming to champion their rights:
- Since Marcos, Jr. took office in June 2022 until January 28 of this year, 1,267 cases of human rights violation involving children have been reported. These cases involved the killing, attempted killing, torture, abduction, illegal arrest and detention of minors and infants. Children were also victims of bombing, strafing, forced evacuation, food blockades, intimidation and military occupation. All of which are in violation of International Humanitarian Law and the special protection for children, newborns and their nursing mother. [A1]
- Ten children were mercilessly killed by AFP soldiers then falsely claimed as casualties in their encounters with New People’s Army (NPA) units. These include 9-year-old Kylene Casao in Batangas, 17-year old Argie Salvador in Camarines Norte and 16-year-old Eusibio Cranzo (Kuni Cuba) in Sultan Kudarat.
- In Negros, the 94th IB massacred the Fausto family, including 11-year-old Raben and 15-year-old Ben, and killed 16-year-old Everly Kee, along with her 5-month pregnant mother.
- In Masbate, soldiers mercilessly killed 17-year-old Carling Belan and 14-year-old JP Osabel in separate incidents. They accused both of being Red fighters.
- In Samar, two children were shot without cause by the 73rd IB when they encountered them in the forest. Also in Samar, the 63rd IB butchers killed Ronie Obiado together with his 2-year-old grandson Intoy.
- In Oriental Mindoro, an infant of the Inyab family was killed while reactionary soldiers were conducting combat operations. In all these cases, the families, friends and barriofolks repeatedly refuted the AFP’s lies that the victims were involved with the NPA.
- Thirty children were victims of abduction, attempted abduction and illegal detention. Five of them were newborn babies.
Children as hostage of the enemy
It is the modus operandi of the reactionary AFP to abduct children of comrades or suspected members of the CPP-NPA and keep them hostage to be used as bait to force the surrender of their parents.
Such is the case of the daughter of Red fighters, Baby Rhea, who was kidnapped by soldiers of the 47th IB to force her parents to surrender. The military enemy had the same motive in kidnapping Baby Marx in Negros.
In Samar, two newborn babies, along with their mothers, were secretly detained in the 8th IB camp to force their fathers suspected of being guerrilla fighters to surrender.
Also in Samar, seven minors were abducted and made “hostages” inside the military camp to be used as bait for their relatives suspected of being fighters.
Meanwhile, villagers prevented soldiers from kidnapping an infant after they illegally arrested his mother in Masbate.
Children were not spared from torture at the hands of soldiers. In Samar, Tipano Rotamula, with his two minor children were made to stand under the heat of the sun after soldiers accused him of being involved in an NPA ambush.
In Surigao, two underage children named Archie and Dennis were beaten, along with other members of the Montenegro family, on suspicion of supporting the revolutionary movement.
Thousands of children experienced trauma and fear caused by indiscriminate bombing, strafing and shelling in Samar, Negros, Ilocos, Agusan, Cagayan, Aurora, Kalinga, Bukidnon, Abra, Iloilo, Camarines Sur, Quezon, Surigao, Nueva Ecija and Mindoro. Using the latest and most high-tech warplanes, howitzers, and drones, bombings by enemy forces of the AFP devastate civilian communities of indigenous people and farmers. Children’s education is also affected because local governments are forced to suspend classes in areas where bombing and militarization are intense.
Children in farming communities remain under constant threat from landgrabbers’armed goons, along with police and military. These include children in Hacienda Yulo, Lupang Ramos, farms in Bulacan and many others.
Children of workers and the semi-proletariat in urban areas are also not spared from various forms of oppression, threats, abductions and killings. According to Ang Bayan’s records, at least three communities experienced violent demolitions recently. One of these was a 2024 demolition in Quezon City to give way to the construction of a parking lot for a public children’s hospital that resulted in having babies and infants sleep on the streets.
As one fascist soldier told another after killing the parents of a 9 year-old boy, suspecting them of being members of the NPA, “We should kill him now for he would come after us when he grows up!” Then shot the boy. This is the enemy’s mindset: children are seen not as innocent victims in their counterrevolutionary war, but either as bargaining chips to force the surrender of Red fighters or as potential threats to the regime. In their eyes, every child in a struggling community is a future activist, Red fighter, and propagandist of the revolution—someone who must be crushed even before they can come of age and rise against oppression. Rather than addressing the root causes of why the Filipino people take up arms, the reactionary state chooses to silence even the youngest voices with utmost brutality.
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) is the revolutionary united front organization of the Filipino people fighting for national freedom and for the democratic rights of the people. The NDFP seeks to develop and coordinate all progressive classes, sectors and forces in the Filipino people’s struggle to end the rule of US imperialism and its local allies of big landlords and compradors, and attain national and social liberation.