Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) personnel failed show at their assigned booth in the Ateneo Career Fair held at Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) in Quezon City on March 13. A day before the event, One Big Fight for Human Rights and Democracy (OBFHRD) and students criticized their presence at the fair.

According to OBFHRD, the AFP’s planned participation was another manifestation of campus militarization. It also amounted to institutional collaboration by ADMU with the AFP amid its repeated human rights violations nationwide.

“These recruitment schemes are blatant attempts to enter academic spaces to whitewash the AFP’s crimes against youth, workers, peasants, women, IPs, and so many other sectors that experience unrelenting HRVs at their hands,” OBFHRD said.

Military units had repeatedly taken Ateneo High School students to military camps for “field trips” prior to the AFP’s campus recruitment.These “field trips” were recorded in January in Cavite City and in 2024 at the 2nd ID headquarters in Tanay, Rizal.

The group said the military’s recruitment and intrusion on campus are linked to the Declaration of Cooperation signed by ADMU and the AFP in September 2025. The agreement is part of the Marcos regime’s National Action Plan for Unity, Peace, and Development (NAP-UPD), which is tightly connected to its counterinsurgency campaign, it added.

“We Ateneans must reject their long-standing culture of violence, impunity, and oppression,” the group urged fellow students. They again called for the junking of the university’s cooperation declaration with the AFP, insisting that their education must not serve the terrorism of the state and military.

OBFHRD and progressive groups launched a protest on the day of the career fair near the AFP’s booth to expose and denounce the military’s human rights violations record. They dismantled the posted “AFP Recruitment Booth” sign and the QR code used for job applications.

“Our university must be safe and free from any encroachment by fascist institutions like the Philippine Army,” the group said.