Military denies New York-based watchdog’s report on child warriors

MANILA, Philippines – The military yesterday denied a report by New York-based Human Rights Watch that the Army is falsely labeling children as combatants of the communist rebels.

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesman Col. Arnulfo Burgos Jr. said inventing evidence against the alleged child warriors of the New People’s Army (NPA) is against existing military rules.

“The AFP does not fabricate evidence to pin down the (communist rebels) on the use of minors. It is illegal and against the established norms of the military organization. It has never been a practice in the AFP,” Burgos said in a statement.

Burgos said they have identified 10 minors in Davao who are being employed as NPA guerrillas.

He said three other minors were captured after trying to detonate an improvised explosive device in Surigao del Sur.

“In the event that soldiers are found to be falsifying documents or fabricating evidences, we will not hesitate to punish them,” Burgos said.

Army spokesman Maj. Harold Cabunoc said they were surprised by the claim of Human Rights Watch that the children are being paraded before the media.

“Upon verification, there is no single documented incident that child soldiers of the New People’s Army were presented to the media by our unit commanders,” Cabunoc said.

He maintained that the NPA is using child combatants in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Burgos urged Human Rights Watch to present proof about the alleged fabrication of evidence against child warriors by Army officers.

“We will highly appreciate if they could file a formal complaint and rest assured that appropriate actions will be taken swiftly by the AFP,” he said.

Human Rights Watch had urged the Philippine government to immediately end the military’s harassment of children and their families in conflict areas and hold liable those responsible.

In six cases involving 12 children since President Aquino took office in June 2010, Human Rights Watch said the Army took custody of children and later publicly alleged that they were “child warriors” working with the NPA.

Human Rights Watch investigated three of these cases – involving six children – and found strong evidence indicating that the accounts of their involvement with the rebels were fabricated by the military.

“The army is concocting stories of rebel child soldiers that are putting children at risk for propaganda purposes,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

“The government should get the military to stop this despicable practice and investigate the officers involved,” she said.

In each of the cases investigated, Human Rights Watch said the army paraded the children in front of the media, publicly branding them rebels. In two of the cases, the army detained the children for several days, in violation of Philippine law, before handing them over to the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DWSD).

Under Philippine law, the AFP is required to immediately turn over to the social welfare agency, the police, or the local government all children taken into custody during military operations to protect the child’s privacy, and to protect the child from further harm.

International humanitarian law prohibits exposing captured combatants to public view, including by the media.

In the past year, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has documented the use of children in armed conflict by the NPA and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), an Islamist armed group, as well as by government forces. –-Alexis Romero (The Philippine Star) with Pia Lee-Brago, Rhodina Villanueva, Helen Flores