DAVAO CITY — A female medic of the New People’s Army (NPA) surrendered to the Army’s 19th Infantry battalion in the North Cotabato town of Magpet on Monday, alleging she was sexually abused by a rebel leader.
“The medic escaped from his sexually abusive leader,” 1Lt. There Ingente, spokesperson of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division, said in a text message on Tuesday.
Ingente identified the victim as Alias Wilma, 20, medic of the NPA’s Pulang Bagani Command 2 (PBC2). Wilma escaped while her troops were temporarily camped in a mountainous area between the North Cotabato and Davao City, Ingente said.
Ingente said it was Wilma’s father who, upon learning of her daughter’s whereabouts, asked the assistance of the 19IB in Calinan district here to rescue his daughter.
Wilma claimed she was one of the five teenage girls from Magpet who were forced to join the NPA in March.
According to Ingente, Wilma told soldiers the teenage girls also suffered from sexual harassment from the same NPA leader who abused her. She did not name the rebel leader.
“Misulod mi diri aron mawala ang mga pagpahimulos, apan naa ra man diay gihapon pagpanghimulos sulod sa armado We joined the NPA to stop the exploitation, yet we suffer the same within the organization),” Wilma was quoted as telling the soldiers when she was debriefed.
Lt. Col. Ehrlich Noel Paraso, Commanding Officer of 19IB, said NPA’s “act of preying on its own female comrades for sexual satisfaction only proved the communist organization’s disrespect for women’s rights.”
“I call on to the local leaders of the NPA terrorists to stop the exploitation of women and minors and other forms of abuses they are committing against the people,” Paraso said.
Maj. Gen Ronald Villanueva, 4ID commander, said the incident was not the first time “that NPA terrorists’ leaders sexually abuse their female members.”
Villanueva said he also received reports from some areas outside the 4ID jurisdiction where sexual exploitation is prevalent within the ranks of the NPA.
“Their leaders made sexual advances on their females by touching delicate body parts, to the extent that these female feels molested and sexually abused,” he said.
“I call on the parents who have daughters who joined the NPA terrorists to reach them and ask them to come home before it will be too late,” he added.
On April, a journal supposedly belonging to a female NPA combatant was found following an encounter in San Carlos, Negros Occidental, that contained confessions that she was molested and almost raped by her comrades after she was recruited in 2011. (Rhoda Grace Saron/PNA)
