NTF-ELCAC SCORES RENEWED 'TERROR-GROOMING' PUSH TARGETING YOUTH

February 13, 2026

The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) has raised alarm over what it described as renewed "terrorist-grooming" operations targeting Filipino youth, following a recent speech delivered by Julieta de Lima before the League of Filipino Students during its 21st National Congress.

In a press statement, NTF-ELCAC Executive Director Ernesto C. Torres Jr. emphasized that activism itself is not the issue — but organized efforts to channel students toward armed struggle cross a dangerous line.

“Let us be clear: activism is not the issue. Debate is not the issue. Criticism of government is not the issue,” Torres said. “What concerns us is the open call to intensify recruitment and strengthen structures aligned with a movement that has long pursued armed struggle against the democratic State."

Torres stressed that when young people are "systematically conditioned and directed toward violent revolution, that is terrorist-grooming."

According to the task force official, the speech went beyond discussing social issues and affirmed the framework of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, encouraged intensified recruitment in campuses, and situated student organizing within the broader structure of the Communist Party, the New People’s Army, and allied underground networks.

“These are not abstract ideas,” Torres noted. “They form part of a decades-old revolutionary blueprint. The insurgency does not begin in the mountains. It often begins in classrooms — through ideological consolidation, study circles, and gradual conditioning.”

He further said that former rebels have repeatedly testified how recruitment pipelines start with exposure to seemingly ordinary campus activism before progressing into structured underground participation.

“What appears to be harmless organizing can evolve into a deliberate pathway toward armed engagement,” Torres said, adding: "That is not spontaneous activism. That is structured cadre-building. That is terrorist-grooming.”

The task force expressed particular concern over reports of organized recruitment targets, formation of “squads” of prospective members, and systematic campus expansion efforts.

Torres also highlighted what he described as a stark moral contradiction within the movement’s leadership structure.

For decades, he noted that Julieta de Lima and the late Jose Maria Sison before, have been based and living comfortable lives in Europe — far removed from the risks and bloodshed that armed struggle inevitably brings.

“Yet it is young Filipino students who are urged to take up the burden of revolution," he pointed out.

Torres drew a sharp contrast between ideological leadership abroad and the tragic consequences faced by recruits on the ground.

“While senior figures live out their years overseas, it is students like Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila student Jerlyn Doydora who are recruited, exploited, and turned into cannon fodder,” Torres declared.

"They are the ones who end up in the mountains. They are the ones whose dreams are cut short. They are the ones who die senselessly — along with their futures," Torres bewailed.

Torres emphasized that the government does not criminalize belief and respects constitutional protections on freedom of thought and expression. However, he said the State has a duty to act when organized efforts are directed at strengthening structures linked to an armed movement responsible for decades of violence and extortion.

“There is a profound injustice when those who preach protracted war are not the ones who face its consequences,” he said.

Calling on parents, educators, school administrators, and student leaders to remain vigilant, the NTF-ELCAC stressed that campuses must remain spaces for critical thinking and democratic engagement — not recruitment grounds for a notoriously entitled and self-centered terrorist movement.

“The Filipino youth deserve opportunities, not indoctrination. They deserve education, not exploitation. They deserve a future built in peace, not promised through armed struggle,” Torres said.

“The strength of our democracy lies in reform, not revolution through violence. Let us guide the energy of our youth toward building our nation — not burning it," he added.