The Rights of Filipino Children:
On the Rights of the Filipino Children

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

There is a particular significance in focusing our attention on the situation of Filipino children in this issue of Ang Bayan. We must counter the reactionary all-out propaganda of the Estrada government and of petty bourgeois anti-communist organizations accompanying the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The government is launching cosmetic programs to conceal the intense suffering of Filipino children and its direct and indirect participation in oppressing and violating the rights of children. It desperately attempts to dissociate the problems and oppression suffered by children from poverty and from the rottenness of the social system so as to give the impression that �charity� projects are sufficient to address the needs of children and their parents.

Because it could not completely conceal its iniquity, especially the targeting of children in its counterrevolutionary war, the Estrada government highlights the concocted issue of the New People�s Army�s supposed policy of recruiting child fighters in an attempt to diminish the ever-widening support of the Filipino people for armed struggle, and tarnish the rising prestige of the Party and the revolutionary movement in the realm of international diplomacy.

To thoroughly belie the Estrada government�s rotten propaganda, AB is publishing the August 30 statement of the Military Commission of the Party Central Committee that clarifies the long-standing policy of the Party and the New People�s Army regarding the minimum age requirement in recruiting NPA fighters. Also in order to strengthen and further clarify this policy, AB is printing in this issue the memorandum on the �Minimum Age Requirement for NPA Fighters� which the Executive Committee of the Party Central Committee released on October 15. These also serve as reminders to all NPA units.Related articles regarding the situation of child workers and about fascism in the countryside describe the oppression and violence perpetrated by the reactionary state against children. These articles show why children will remain miserable for as long as the oppressive semicolonial and semifeudal system exists; and why scores of children and youth actively seek to be a part of the revolutionary movement. Due to the oppression they suffer, they immediately realize that only the unity of the people and the revolutionary movement can ensure a bright future for children.

12 November 1999
English Edition

	Editorial: Take advantage of the reactionary Estrada regime�s crisis of rule
	Editorial: Greet the 21st century and new millennium with the resolve to intensify the revolution
	Regarding basic and special tactical offensives
	Storm of resistance against globalization
	The expanding empire of Lucio Tan
	Lacson�s appointment as PNP chief: Sharpening the fascist fangs of the US-Estrada regime
	Intensifying fascism of the US-Estrada regime
	The Rights of Filipino Children: On the Rights of the Filipino Children
	The Rights of Filipino Children: On the NPA�s alleged mass recruitment of child guerrillas
	The Rights of Filipino Children: Pertinent Facts
	The Rights of Filipino Children: Memorandum on the Minimum age requirement for NPA fighters
	The Rights of Filipino Children: Organizing children
	The Rights of Filipino Children: The miserable state of child workers in the Philippines
	The Rights of Filipino Children: Counterrevolutionary violence against children in the countryside
	On the nationality question and the right to self-determination
	Widespread mass actions for human rights launched
	Sham negotiation between the US-Estrada regime and the Tabara-dela Cruz clique
	NDF condemns inhumane treatment of Ka Parago
	News