CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga — National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) and its partners continue to intensify their advocacy against recruitment of communist-terrorist groups (CTGs).
This, as NICA warned the public to be discerning of the different methods and platforms that CTGs use in their recruitment activities.
NICA Regional Director Maria Luisa De Guzman said that as the lead in the Situation Awareness and Knowledge Management (SAKM) cluster of Regional Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, the agency is focused on the conduct of awareness campaign particularly on the CTGs, their recruitment, modus operandi, machinations, and deceptions.
“We also conduct customized orientation for the youth, for parents, for the labor sector, and for the bureaucracy. Right now, we can say that we are sleeping with the enemy as many of them [CTGs] are infiltrating the bureaucracy. That is why we are doing these orientations and security awareness so that workers both in the public and private sector can practice security measures personally and in their workplaces,” she said.
De Guzman added that as part of their awareness campaign, NICA also partnered with the Commission on Higher Education and Department of Education for the youth to support the formation of youth support groups.
They also conduct briefings on cyber terrorism and give lectures on social media exploitation because they want the public to be more discerning and vigilant.
With these, she called on parents to take an active role by looking after the websites that their children visit.
“We should also look if these are avenues for recruitment by the CTGs. We need to know what are their front organizations so that we can avoid being recruited,” she said.
Aside from that, the RTF-ELCAC continuously conduct community consultations with identified CTG supporters and former rebels who want to be mainstreamed again in the society.
Through these consultations, the government urged former rebels and supporters to withdraw support to the CTGs while at the same time knowing the main reason why they join the armed groups so that proper interventions can be given to them.
After the consultations, they organize former rebels and supporters into cooperatives.
To date, NICA reported that they have already completed the registration of about four groups, while six more are in the pipeline.
SOURCE: Marie Joy S. Carbungco (PIA3)
