HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Children of War, Children in Anguish

Adel, 13, still remembers how more than two years ago eight burly men wearing soldiers’ camouflage uniforms dragged her parents out of their house more than. She recalls how she, pretending to be asleep, listened to them plead mercy.  And she still hears to this day the sounds that tragically followed and changed her young life forever: the two deafening gunshots.

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat.com   

Internal refugees at the Kanlungan Center in Dasmariñas, Cavite. 

Photo courtesy of the Children's Rehabilitation Center

Adel, 13, still remembers how more than two years ago eight burly men wearing soldiers’ camouflage uniforms dragged her parents out of their house. She recalls how she, pretending to be asleep, listened to them plead mercy. And she still hears to this day the sounds that tragically followed and changed her young life forever: the two deafening gunshots.

Adeliza Albarillo was only 11 then. Her family of 10 lived in a remote mountainous village in the town of San Teodoro, Mindoro Oriental province, a stronghold of the New People’s Army (NPA) southwest of Manila, according to the military.

It took a year before the young Adel could accept that her parents were dead. After the shots, she ran outside and found her parents gone from her forever.

Orphaned by the state

Just how much pain and devastation can a child bear in seeing her parents die, especially at the hands of government troops?

In the case of Adel, it took more than three months before she could verbally admit that her parents were dead and another eight months before she would cry and express her pain.

Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC), a service institution focused on children victims of militarization, said most children who have been orphaned through violent means pass through three stages, the first being what psychologists call a “denial stage”.

CRC is run by psychologists, social workers, nurses and other child care workers. In some cases, CRC serves as a temporary home. Adel was among its foster children.  

In an interview with Bulatlat.com, CRC Executive Director Isabel Lanada said the children often use the sudden economic burden that emerged with the death of the breadwinners to keep themselves from dwelling on their grief.

“With the death of the parents, both or either one, the children are burdened first and foremost with economic hardships.  As they are preoccupied on where to get money to buy a casket or how to attend to funeral matters, they have a good reason to deny that they are affected,” said Lanada. 

“At times, they would say that they are fine even without their parents, even smiling as they say so. But of course we know it’s not true since no child who loses a parent is happy, particularly if they die in a violent and painful way,” she also said.

The children also undergo “extreme depression.” Lanada, a child psychologist who personally managed Adel’s case, said that at one point, Adel said she wished she were dead. For eight months, she would have nightmares about the killing and, sometimes, dreams that she saw and talked to her father with whom she was particularly close.

Children with such experiences like Adel live in a constant state of stress, according to Lanada. “Fear and apprehension are predominantly involved in most situations,” she said. 

For example, they fear uniformed men such as military, police and security guards, loud sudden noises such as thunder and banging pots and pans, and, most of all, the uncertain future. 

After almost a year, Adel was finally able to accept her parents’ death but this resulted in periods of unabated weeping. 

Lanada said Adel would cry profusely for no apparent reason.  “At this stage, the children have usually realized what occurred and that there is no chance for their parents coming back,” she explained. 

In most cases, this is also the stage when children feel guilty for what had happened to their parents especially when the children witnessed their parents’ death.  “Although they know that it was soldiers who killed their parents, they could not help but feel guilty because they were not able to do anything to protect their parents,” she said.  

As the military, according to rights groups, does not spare civilians, including children, in their operations against communist guerillas in the countryside, violence is wrongly instilled in the minds of the children.  

The most vivid psychological effect is that children develop an aggressive behavior. “They tend to perceive violence such as torture and killing as normal,” said Lanada. 

She shares that they have had clients who, in the middle of an art session, would stab a seatmate with a pencil. When asked why, the child would assert that he did nothing wrong.  “I just stabbed him, what’s wrong with that?” the child would ask. 

Lanada said children also develop a sense of revengefulness in the long run.  “In all the cases that we have handled, all of the children would want to take revenge when they grow up.” 

The seven-year old son of a slain peasant leader for example told CRC he wants to be a military man when he grows up. He said when the right time comes, he would kill Brig. Gen. Jovito Palparan. Palparan is the commanding officer of the 204^th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IBPA) and believed by rights watchdogs and Mindoro groups as responsible for the killing of his father and other militant leaders.

Vulnerable

On cases where a family or the whole community is affected by military operations, the family or community members evacuate from the area and live in refugee centers. But refugee centers are usually crowded and unsanitary and children become vulnerable to measles, broncho-pneumonia, diarrhea, dengue, primary complex, skin infections and other diseases. 

For 2003, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) documented at least 208 child victims of the armed conflict, 52 of whom are listed under the “involved” category while 156 are under the “affected” category. 

But Lanada said there are more undocumented cases especially in far-flung areas where military operations are frequent. 

“Those documented are cases involving children who were either maimed by bullets or murder victims themselves.  But most children victims are the children of those who were killed, disappeared or detained by military forces,” Lanada explained. 

Sadly, in most of these cases, said Lanada, the children are left alone to fend for their needs, whether economic, emotional or psychological. “Ang mga bata ay inuulila ng estado pero hindi naman sila kinakalinga” (The children are orphaned by the state but it does not take care of their needs), she said. 

Children as direct targets

Gemmalyn Bartolome, 4, and her brother Jinggoy, 2, were fast asleep when a combat squad of the Philippine Air Force (PAF) opened fired at their house in Barangay (village) Mabacao, Maragondon town, Cavite province, a four-hour ride away from Manila. 

They were awakened by the firefight that ensued between the soldiers and the NPA. When the guerrillas fled, the PAF men took the whole Bartolome family – Isidro, 54, Gemma, 35, Rico, 21, and the two children. 

Isidro, their father, and Rico, their brother, were brought to the Maragondon municipal jail while the two children were taken together with their mother, Gemma, to the PAF camp in Nasugbu, Batangas.

The three adults are now facing charges of rebellion while Gemmalyn and Jinggoy are today’s youngest political detainees. 

It is not the first time that children too are detained when their parents are imprisoned.

In 2003, four women political prisoners gave birth in jail and forced to raise their children while incarcerated.  One such case was that of Zenaida Llesis, 40, an alleged NPA leader arrested while 11 months pregnant with her second child, Gabriela. 

Due to psychological and emotional torture, Llesis’ pregnancy was threatened. According to medical records of the Philippine Children’s Medical Center (PCMC), the emotional stress suffered by Llesis triggered heart and lung diseases for her baby.  It was only in April 2004 that mother and child, then 1-year-old, were released through the intervention of the peace panels of both the Arroyo government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

The CRC also said that children who are in their pubescence (eight to 12 years old) are also at times targets for political detention. “They could serve a purpose for the military. In some cases, they are coopted and used to blackmail their guerilla parents or as a tool in the government’s propaganda war against the communist movement,” Lanada said.

Cases

One such case was that of 13-year old Levi Mabanan who was arrested after a military raid.  Levi was only 9 when he was forced to live inside an army camp in Catbalogan, Samar.  He was placed under the custody of a military chaplain for four years and forced to live in what psychologists refer to as an “artificial environment.” A normal child’s real environment is his community where he and his family live. 

Documentation records by CRC show that at first, Levi did not want to go home.  After some investigation, the childcare worker who assisted Levi and his family found that his captors repeatedly threatened Levi that if he goes home, his family would be killed.

It was different for Jelyn Dayong, an 18-year old NPA amazon from Mindanao who was captured in a military operation in March 1999. The military took a photo of Jelyn, who was hit on the leg, her feet submerged in a muddy ground crying for help. That photo was published on the front page of a major daily and used for propaganda by the military. 

The military cited her as proof that the NPA recruits minors. Jelyn was then brought to the DSWD quarters in the province of Cagayan de Oro. She was made to go to school while her family was reportedly given support by the same government agency.  Jelyn would later figure in press conferences speaking against her former comrades. Human rights groups believe Jelyn was manipulated and exploited by the military for its propaganda objectives. 

Indiscriminate firing

Ten-year old Diana Rose Buenaflor was with her teenage friends last April 28 after a night out when military men manning a checkpoint in Rodriguez, Rizal opened fired at their van, without bothering to come near and check who were inside.

Diana Rose bolted out of the vehicle and ran toward her home. Her companions however were hit in different parts of the body. 

News reports later said that the military believed NPA guerrillas were on board the van.

Diana Rose suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder because of the incident. She suffered on-and-off fever for a week and cried with fear whenever she saw anyone who looked like a military. A case study report by the CRC also shows that Diana Rose “felt guilty because she left her companions when they were in trouble.” 

The worst form of victimization of children is of course killing. Just last May 7, the Golloso kids – six-year old Raymund and 13-year old Maylene - were killed by the military inside their home in Barangay Recto, Bulan, Camarines Sur. 

The military later went to the village chief and forced him to sign a certification that said the kids died during an encounter between the military and the NPA. A month later, he admitted to Bulatlat.com that he signed the certification out of fear for his life.

Healing

Lanada said that to help the children recover from pain and depression, they should pass a third stage. She called it the “cognitive mastery and advocacy” stage which aims to encourage the children to participate in the process of changing violent society into a peaceful one.

But Lanada added that the psychosocial effects would never heal until the children see that justice has been served. She said she has seen some of CRC’s clients carry the burden of a lost loved-one into adulthood.

“We can only help them ease the pain and put their anger and depression in the right perspective. We can explain why they should not be guilty of what had happened to their kin,” she said.

In the case of Adel’s parents, their killing was brought to the attention of the Commission on Human Rights for investigation two years ago. Nothing happened. Bulatlat.com

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