ILOILO City – Communist rebels turn their young women recruits into sex slaves, according to the Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry Division (3ID). Its proof: birth control pills recovered from the site of its soldiers’ encounter with the New People’s Army (NPA) in Barangay Aglubong, Janiuay, Iloilo on Monday.
For what else could those pills be, asked Major Cenon Pancito III, the 3ID spokesperson.
It has been an “opens secret”, according to Pancito, that senior NPA officers were using contraceptive pills as a tool to sexually subjugate female rebels.
In a recent encounter in Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental, soldiers also recovered boxes of anti-pregnancy pills.
According to Pancito, these recoveries proved the claim of 16-year-old former rebel “Ka Nene” who recently surrender to the 61st Infantry Battalion.
She said female rebels were being sexually abused by their leaders and at least nine in their group even got pregnant.
Ka Nene said she was nearly raped by a comrade; she was lucky enough that their other companions arrived.
“We can now picture out how barbaric the NPA and Communist Party of the Philippines are,” Pancito said. “They disregard the welfare of the children they recruit, totally the opposite of their propaganda that they are pro-women, pro-children and pro-people.’
The public has to know about this, he stressed, so that young women could be forewarned.
“We collectively condemn the rebels’ sexual abuses, female exploitation and neglect,” said Pancito.
The 12th Infantry Battalion (12IB) encountered at least five armed men from the Baloy Platoon around 1:55 p.m. on April 5 in Barangay Aglubong, Janiuay.
Aside from the boxes of contraceptive pills, soldiers also recovered from the encounter site an M16 armalite rifle./PN
