NYC chair urges 400,000 SK leaders to fight Red youth leaders

National Youth Commission (NYC) chairperson Ronald Cardema on Monday urged the 400,000 Sangguniang Kabataan youth leaders holding government positions to fight their counterparts in the communist movement.

Cardema said in a statement that the presence of supporters as well as critics of President Rodrigo Duterte "is part of a healthy democracy, no problem with that."

"But being consistently Anti-Government, being Anti-Government Troops, and being the youth recruitment base of rebels... the newly elected government youth leaders of today must make a stand now," he added.

He asked SK officials to report to NYC all the anti-government and leftist propaganda in their respective areas.

Cardema also sought for the implementation of projects that would clean up the "ugly vandalism" in their community and to facilitate information drives to build up a stronger sense of nationalism among the youth.

“Our titles as government officials will be useless if we don’t transform our own government offices into centers of nationalistic youth orientation & mobilization. We are useless government officials if we don’t even try to harness our government offices to enjoin our constituents to support our government & our government troops, and inspire them to strengthen the Philippine Republic," he said.

"If you will allow the leftist youth to be the mouthpiece of our generation, expect another 50 years of cellsite burning, of ugly nearly-permanent vandalisms in your barangays, towns, cities, & provinces, and the continued killings of our troops sugarcoated in their twisted sense of patriotism ala terrorist style," he added.

The statement came with the hashtags #DUtyToEmpowertheRepublic #ThroughtheEnlightenmentoftheYOUTH.

Cardema headed the Duterte Youth group before he was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte as chairperson of the NYC in August 2018. — BAP, GMA News