The silence is deafening

June 08, 2025

For a bloc that screams murder for even the slightest perception of injustice, real or imagined, the Makabayan bloc and all its allied partylists and organizations' deafening silence in the face of sexual assault allegations against a Kabataan Partylist leader is unconscionable.

This selective outrage is an egregious betrayal not just of the cause they say they champion, but of the very people they insist they represent. Gabriela, for instance, has long been loud and indignant in denouncing sexual violence, especially when the alleged perpetrators wear state-issued uniforms. But now, when the accused is one of their own? Not even a whisper.

This is not a matter of lacking information. The survivor, a former Kabataan member, came forward with a detailed public account after being failed by the organization’s internal channels. Only then did Kabataan Partylist issue a statement to insist that the issue is being dealt with "internally" and “help” her file a case. A move clearly meant to save face because the issue could no longer be ignored.

Internal accountability mechanisms across the Makabayan bloc are now under serious question. Former rebels have long attested to this very playbook in the underground CPP-NPA-NDF movement. Sexual abuse and coercion are not new in NPA units, where cases are typically buried in “rectification” processes or hushed up through “criticism and self-criticism.” Justice is never the goal—damage control is, in the name of the "people's war." What’s happening now in Kabataan is a mirror of that underground culture. The mango does not fall far from the tree.

According to the UN Secretary-General’s 2024 report on Children and Armed Conflict in the Philippines, a verified case of sexual violence involved two 15-year-old girls who were abducted and forced into a guerrilla unit, one of whom was raped by an NPA member. This represents a double blow of child exploitation: not only were they recruited as minors, but they also suffered sexual abuse within the NPA. As with most abuses within the so-called 'people's army,' the NPA did not disclose the incident. The report further emphasized that such abuses are 'vastly under-reported,' as survivors struggle with shame, fear of reprisals, and limited support services. Apparently, the reported numbers are just the tip of the iceberg.

Just last April, United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) pastors and Kalinaw SEMR, a federation of former rebels in Southeastern Mindanao, helped a young Lumad woman finally press charges for the serial sexual assaults she endured at the hands of a CPP cadre moonlighting as a UCCP pastor. The first attack happened when she was just 14, inside the evacuation-center-turned-hamlet at UCCP Haran in Davao City. She reported the abuse to the managers of the bawkit center that included organizations like Gabriela-SMR, Kabataan Partylist, and the administrators of the CPP-established Salugpungan Ta’ Tanu Igkanogon Community Learning Center—but not one of them moved to hold the perpetrator criminally liable.

Failing to condemn the rape of one of their own, just as they fail to recognize the deaths of youth recruits in the NPA's armed struggle as a tragedy rather than something to be romanticized, suggests something far more sinister than mere silence. It has become systemic and a normalization of abuse and exploitation of our youth in the name of the so-called national democratic revolution.

Young recruits are told to get over “unnecessary sacrifices,” including sexual assault because there is urgent political work to be done. Survivors are silenced with the mantra of “democratic centralism,” warned not to question internal processes even when their human rights are being trampled. Whether underground or aboveground, whether armed cadre or youth volunteer, the expectation is clear: accountability is demanded only from the state.

The rot from within is not just about their role as the umbilical cord of the urban armed struggle. That is something they conveniently brush off as “red-tagging.” No, the rot lies in the sheer hypocrisy—in the way they loudly demand justice from others but grow mute when the crime emanates from their very own recruiters, organizers, and leaders.

We hear the voices of many young people, current and former members of Makabayan-allied groups alike, who are speaking out online and in their communities against this injustice. We urge them to continue to demand justice not just in their organizations, but in the proper legal forums. We all need to stand by Ms. Maria Kara.

And to Ms. Kara—rest assured, the government will stand by you. Not to score points or to humiliate your abusers, but because this is what a genuine democratic system does. Meanwhile, the Makabayan bloc's post-election mantra in the face of the Filipino people's resounding rejection is to continue—"tuloy ang laban"—in the face of their indirect complicity in sexual assault might just as well be "ituloy ang silence."

Undersecretary Ernesto C. Torres Jr.

Executive Director, National Secretariat

National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict