Young NPA surrenderer becoming driver-mechanic

From the Philippine News Agency (Feb 2, 2021): Young NPA surrenderer becoming driver-mechanic (By Liza Agoot)

CHANGE IN LIFESTYLE. “Carlo” (right), a 26-year old former rebel of the New People’s Army, and a woman who is a former Militia ng Bayan member, receive their checks from the government in the last week of January 2021. Carlo said he will use the money he got to start a business using the skill he is now honing with the help of the government through a scholarship. Carlo is finishing a driver-mechanic course through alternative learning system provided by the government. (PNA photo by Liza T. Agoot)

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Spending eight years of his young life in the mountains always on the run from government military forces, a young New People’s Army (NPA) fighter decided to go home and change his life for the better while there is enough time.

“I am taking up ALS (alternative learning system) to learn to become a driver mechanic,” said “Carlo” (not his real name), 26, who joined the NPA when he was 18 years old.

He said he tried to take the government’s offer to people like him, an NPA rebel fighter, in exchange for laying down his firearm.

Carlo said he first learned of the program of the government when he heard his comrades at the mountains talking about it.

In ilocano, he said, “they said the government is doing something to deceive (us)”.

While he had second thoughts and was afraid, he decided to take his chance and avail of the government program despite the claims that it was just a deception.

“I surrendered while I’m still young and I still have time to fix my life unlike the others who grow old in the mountains hiding and always running away,” he said in the vernacular.

He added that it was worth the try considering the many years of hardship without a future to look forward to.

For coming out and returning to the fold of the law in 2020, he received an initial PHP15,000 from the government.

Last week, he received a check for the firearm remuneration worth PHP86,000 and livelihood assistance of PHP50,000, which is aside from the scholarship grant provided by the government that will prepare him for his livelihood activity.

Carlo said he intends to use the money he received to start a business related to the course he is taking.

“I am taking ALS and I want to finish it because looking at my age, I think I have wasted so much and, hopefully this will give me a good life,” he said in the dialect.

Life in the mountains

In the Ilocano dialect, he described his life for eight years in the mountains with the NPAs as “not easy, tiring, sleepless nights”.

He said he regretted joining because there was nothing good achieved and it was “overly tiring”.

“I was young and enthusiastic, I was just enjoying and I did not know what was in store for me but I was always with them when I was at the province and in the city, I went with them. I was recruited in Baguio,” Carlo said in the dialect.

Carlo urged the youth like him not to be deceived into joining the communist movement.

“Listen to my story and I am telling you, it is difficult to go there (referring to his being a former NPA),” he said.

When Carlo received the check from Benguet Governor Melchor Diclas, he was with a woman, a former Militia ng Bayan who also opted to return to the fold of the law. The woman also received a firearm remuneration.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1129292