'We Will No Longer Claim His Remains': How the CPP-NPA-NDF Destroys Families

May 19, 2026

The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) expresses profound grief and sorrow over another heartbreaking reminder that the CPP-NPA-NDF does not merely destroy lives on the battlefield—it destroys families, fractures relationships, and leaves emotional wounds that continue long after the guns fall silent.

The tragic case of Vince Francis Dingding is not only a story about a young life lost in armed conflict. It is a painful story of a son lost to a movement that gradually pulled him away from home, from family, and from the people who loved him most. Beyond reports, operational accounts, and organizational affiliations lies a far more devastating reality: a family now carrying unimaginable grief.

In a handwritten letter dated May 18 and signed by both parents, Romulo and Rica Dingding formally appealed that all matters relating to their son's death be coursed through their barangay captain in order to spare the family from further distress. In the same letter, they revealed that Vince’s mother is battling colon cancer and had been strictly advised to avoid stress to aid her healing and recovery.

Even in the middle of mourning, a family was already struggling to survive another painful battle.

But perhaps no words captured the human tragedy more painfully than the postscript written at the end of the letter:

"P.S. We decided that we will no longer claim his remains in Negros Occ."

Those words may be among the saddest sentences a parent could ever write. No mother and father dream of reaching a point where grief becomes so overwhelming, pain becomes so unbearable, and emotional wounds become so deep that they can no longer bring themselves to claim the remains of their own child, who was snatched from them by a selfish, violent movement.

Behind that sentence is a pain difficult to measure and impossible to reduce into statistics.

The CPP-NPA-NDF often speaks of struggle, sacrifice, and revolution. But the question that must be asked is this: sacrifice for whom? Revolution at whose expense?

Because in the end, it is ordinary Filipino families that pay the highest price.

The path of Vince Dingding reflects a disturbing pattern that has surfaced repeatedly through the years. Reports indicate that he served as a student leader in UP Cebu from 2014 to 2015 and participated in various campaigns and political activities. Prior to joining the armed movement, he reportedly became involved in Kabataan Cebu.

By 2017, he had allegedly entered the armed underground and remained within NPA structures in Negros for nearly a decade. Through the years he reportedly assumed political and organizational functions within various units before later operating in different fronts in Negros.

His case is not isolated.

There is a visible and recurring pattern involving hardened activists and personalities linked to CTG front organizations who eventually become prodigal children—individuals gradually distanced from parents, separated from their homes, and transformed from students and advocates into armed operatives.

Similar painful stories have surfaced before. Similar grieving families have spoken before. Similar tears have been shed before.

Again and again, families are left with the same questions: At what point did they stop coming home? At what point did a child become unreachable? At what point did ideology become stronger than family?

The deepest damage inflicted by the CPP-NPA-NDF is often invisible. It is found not only in lives lost but in family bonds broken, parents left in anguish, and homes permanently scarred by grief. Long after encounters end, families continue fighting battles of their own—battles against pain, regret, trauma, and loss.

No ideology, no political objective, and no false promise of revolution is worth destroying the bond between a parent and a child. No movement that repeatedly leaves mothers grieving and fathers broken can claim moral victory. The tears of families left behind tell a far more painful truth.