Abolish the NTF-ELCAC! Education over militarization!

Malaya Movement USA denounces the appointment of Vice President and secretary of the Department of Education, Sara Duterte as co-vice chair of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

The country’s education crisis is bursting at the seams--the Philippines ranks at the global bottom for reading comprehension, less than a third of school buildings are officially in good condition, teachers are too few and outrageously underpaid. The very last thing the Philippines’ school children need is their education usurped by a task force formed out of a totalitarian book.

The NTF-ELCAC is the embodiment of Philippine “democracy” today--controlled by the political elite and viciously silences dissent. It’s emblematic of the administration’s security policy--said to protect, but meant to terrorize. Now it’s a plaything for Duterte, the woman who red-tagged school teachers for supporting the “communist-inspired” transport strike by jeepney drivers back in March.

With Duterte as both the head of the Department of Education and an administrator of the NTF-ELCAC, the spiral down to fascism in the Philippines continues. Duterte has already invested her time in office militarizing schools through mandatory ROTC, and she will no doubt use her new role in the NTF-ELCAC to stifle the freedom of thought in the country’s schools. The NTF-ELCAC already banned books, red-tagged publishers and school teachers, and held school forums turning school children against civil and human rights organizations.

We are sickened but unsurprised that Duterte would claim this new move is one against “enemies of the state who slaughter civilians and Indigenous Peoples,” when it is the state itself slaughtering civilians and Indigenous Peoples. Zara Alvarez, Kian De Los Santos, school teacher Chad Booc, school teacher Gelejurain Ngujo, Willy Rodriguez, Leni Rivas, and Angel Rivas. We will not forget nor forgive the state that Duterte represents and which took these beloved souls--civilians and Indigenous Peoples--from their family and friends.

Malaya Movement USA echoes the Filipino people’s demands to abolish the NTF-ELCAC. We echo the calls of teachers who are red-tagged by the Marcos-Duterte government for demanding livable salaries, more classrooms, and adequate funding over the crumbs that the Philippine legislative and executive authorities approve every year.