Dr. Maria Natividad Castro, “alias Ka Yammy/Ka Ami/Dok”, is an active member, recruiter, trainer, and fundraiser of the Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army – National Democratic Front (CPP NPA NDF), a former member said.
According to former CPP-NPA-NDF member Gleceria Balangiao, aka Ka-Inday, Liaison Officer of the Rural Missionary of the Philippines – Northern Mindanao Region, during yesterday’s virtual press briefing of the National Task Force to End Local Communists Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), she personally met Castro several times between 2006 to 2009 during meetings and trainings of NPA fighters on ‘first aid’ treatment for wounded terrorists.
She said she first met the lady doctor in Cagayan de Oro, where Castro was said to give training and “recruiting health professionals” to join the terrorist movement as “medics.”
Balangiao claimed that Castro has the innate ability to lead and organize. As finance officer then, she said she saw how Castro took part in preparing ‘project proposals’ on how to carry out trainings for first aiders and to seek international funding.
She also said she witnessed how the funds from a European Union organization were being channeled to the Communist Terrorist Groups (CTGs).
She said 60 percent of the fund will go to the “partidong komunista” while 40 percent of the money will go to the unit that will implement the project.
Undersecretary Lorraine Marie Badoy, the Task Force’s Spokesperson on Sectoral Concerns, said that Castro is an enemy of the state, as far as the NTF-ELCAC is concerned, explaining that the doctor “is not a simple member of a terrorist organization – which is a serious crime in and of itself, but actually “a Central Committee member” of the CPP NPA NDF – “an organization that has been designated by the Anti Terrorism Council as a terrorist organization.”
Police Major Dorothy Tumulak, Public Information Officer of Police Regional Office 13 (CARAGA), on the other hand, belied reports of left-leaning groups that Castro was not accorded properly when she was arrested.
