Kabataang Makabayan (KM)-Central Negros criticized Marcos Jr.’s State of the Nation Address (SONA), calling it as “not genuine.” In his almost two hours of blabbering, not even a sentence tackled the struggles faced by the youth sector.

“The Filipino youth are also present in different sectors. It is justifiable that our plight deserves to be heard by the public,” expressed EK Jacolbe, spokesperson of KM-Central Negros.

The spokesperson mentioned that youth farmers and those in the urban poor communities face issues of landlessness and are continuously deprive of their rights to livelihood, housing, and basic social services. Militarization is also rampant in areas where they reside, causing their living condition to further deteriorate. Youth who skated past the tertiary education unfortunately encounters the reality of joblessness and becoming the source of cheap labor. Some are forced to work in such a young age, making them vulnerable to the inhumane working condition in the country.

She also highlighted that there are thousands of out-of-school youth in the country; majority of them are from the countryside. This goes to show that the education in a semicolonial and semifeudal society is not for everyone. For decades, its orientation remains colonial, commercialized, and fascist. The latter became more apparent during the stint of the then Department of Education Secretary Sara Duterte.

“The agenda of the regime of Marcos Jr and DepEd to revise the history and militarized schools became clearer. This manifested in their desperate attempt to implement MATATAG Curriculum and Mandatory ROTC. Additionally, they cut the budget for state universities each year to inflate the fund for military spending,” Jacolbe added.

Such actions of the reactionary government doom the future of the youth. However, the power of collective action is more decisive than any external forces. Jacolbe encouraged the youth to join the New People’s Army instead of falling into the trap of the Marcos Jr regime to participate in the imminent war between the two rival imperialist countries: US and China.

“The revolutionary movement, in which the youth partakes, is resolute in firmly grasping the Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM) principles for the advancement and victory of the national democratic revolution with a socialist perspective,” Jacolbe ended.