Minor among NPA rebs captured in CamSur –military

The military's Southern Luzon Command on Wednesday said a 15-year-old is among the five suspected New People's Army rebels captured following an encounter with government troops on Tuesday in the municipality of Bato, Camarines Sur.

The minor, who is a relative of another captured NPA rebel, has been turned over to the Department of Social Welfare and Development and Philippine National Police for disposition and processing, according to Solcom.

According to the military, the five were captured following a firefight between Army troops belonging to the 83rd Infantry Battalion and the NPA rebels around 6:45 a.m. on Tuesday, resulting in the death of four suspected rebels.

Lieutenant General Danilo Pamonag, Solcom commander, condemned the recruitment of children and minors by the NPA, saying that they should be given "books, not guns" in order for them to be "part of the solution."

He said that "recruitment of minors in armed groups is against the International Humanitarian Law," citing Protocols I and II of the Geneva Convention. He added that the prohibition can also be found in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour.

The Statute of the International Criminal Court, meanwhile, considered "conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 and using them to participate actively in hostilities" as a war crime.

Solcom said students and university graduates are among the recently captured NPA rebels, which indicates the "rise in the recruitment among the youth."

Successive encounters with military troops and the death of Alfredo Merilos who is an alleged regular member of the Party Central Committee and one of the bastions of the armed struggle in Bicol Region have "considerably weakened" the manpower, firepower, morale and will of the communists rebels in Camarines Sur, according to Solcom.

"Their efforts are futile. Because we value the lives of our fellow Filipinos, I encourage them to lay down their arms. We prefer to resolve this peacefully, but we shall not hesitate to use our full might in crushing the insurgency in Southern Tagalog and Bicol regions," Pamonag said. —Marlly Rome Bondoc/KBK, GMA News