A former militant teacher has stepped up to accuse her former comrades of forming a legal front for the Communist Party of the Philippines, New People’s Army, and National Democratic Front through a teachers’ organization started in the 1980s.
Calling herself “Ka Jamie,” the teacher said through the Koalisyun at Alyansa ng Dating Rebelde that the Alliance of Concerned Teachers was formed “to push the communist and terroristic agenda.”
Requesting anonymity for fear of reprisal, Ka Jamie said she was an organizer for the Manila Public School Teachers Association, a coalition partner of the ACT, which was established on Jan. 26, 1982.
Her task was to organize the MPSTA, urging them to become regular street demonstrators, along with other public school teachers’ groups, and call for their salary increases.
“At first, we were only discussing teachers’ issues, our additional pay during elections and how we could defend MPSTA from electoral protests of politicians who were accusing us of partisanship,” Ka Jamie said.
But then her involvement became deeper in the communist organization, and she said she witnessed the alleged illegal activities of the group.
“They said we should advance a mass-oriented, nationalist at scientific educational system, along with boycotts, walkouts and work stoppages,” Ka Jamie said.
“Sometimes that got me thinking, ‘Aren’t we violating our vows as teachers, because with every protest we were pushing, the school children were being deprived and denied their right to education?’” she added.
Organizers joining in from other groups offered to introduce to them “socialist education,” alongside the NDF’s underground organization, the Katipunan ng mga Gurong Makabayan (Kaguma).
Ka Jamie said she was asked to be part of this bigger group, which claimed that the true solution to the problem in education “is armed struggle.”
She was told the participation of teachers in the rural areas “play a great role in encouraging other teachers to teach the communist ideology to children and to the masses, including the peasant warriors who lack the education.”
She said there were a series of exposure trips in the rural areas to teach in the Pambansang Demokrasyang Paaralan (Padepa), a platform to hold seminars to “brainwash” children fighters, and claimed her group stood as the lead educator in the system.
In Padepa, Ka Jamie asserted she saw NPA fighters as young as 14 years old who wasted their time at training camps instead of going to school.
The teacher said she was later sent to meet counterparts in Negros, Caraga, Davao, Bicol, and Northern Luzon, where most of the students that were being brainwashed were young NPA fighters.