Shaping the youth

He and his Duterte Youth party-list group are being likened to the Hitler Youth, and he chairs the National Youth Commission. How did the NYC, which was once headed by entertainer Aiza Seguerra, develop this rep?

The comparison intensified last week, after Seguerra’s successor and Duterte Youth founder Ronald Gian Carlo Cardema called for the withdrawal of the scholarships of “rebellious anti-government” state scholars, “specifically those students who are allied with the leftist CPP-NPA-NDF, a terrorist group that is trying to overthrow the Philippine Government and killing our government troops.”

Since higher education tuition is now free, this refers to all students in state colleges and universities. Some SCUs are harder to get into than others, especially the University of the Philippines, which also happens to be a center of student activism. So it can be a considerable loss to be kicked out of UP for anti-government activities.

Amid the uproar stirred by his statement, Cardema faced The Chiefs last Thursday on Cignal TV’s One News.

Cardema is remembered for his confrontation with singer and anti-government critic Jim Paredes during the celebration of the people power revolt anniversary two years ago today. The handful of Duterte Youth members at the rally with Cardema later received a “Republic Defenders” membership pin from Solicitor General Jose Calida.

Cardema studied BS Biology in UP Los Baños where he says he joined the left-leaning League of Filipino Students. He said two or three of his LFS batch mates were killed in military counterinsurgency operations.

But he was also high school corps commander and later president of the Reserve Officers Training Corps in UP Los Baños, and ROTC centennial president in UP Diliman as well as supreme commander of the UP Vanguard fraternity.

He later left UPLB for the Philippine Military Academy. As a PMA cadet, he released an open letter condemning the killing of his uncle, Noel Capulong Sr., BAYAN Southern Tagalog deputy regional coordinator, during a military counterinsurgency operation in 2006 when Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was president.

In his letter, circulated online, Cardema condemned GMA’s plan to annihilate communist rebels and leftist groups “who aspire for change in the rotten system of government and society.”

“The activists from among students, farmers, workers, entrepreneurs, church people, and professionals would be compelled to join the armed struggle,” Cardema warned.

The PMA declared him AWOL and he was expelled.

But that was many years ago, Cardema told us, and youthful minds evolve.

In 2006, when the Magdalo rebel soldiers mutinied against GMA, Cardema praised their cause and described ringleader Antonio Trillanes IV as among “the best of the best.”

Now 32, Cardema describes himself as a centrist and is a staunch supporter of Rodrigo Duterte and Bongbong Marcos.

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Cardema clarified to The Chiefs that his proposal to revoke state scholarships is only for students who take up arms to overthrow the government.

He also said he is proposing intel gathering and surveillance to be conducted only during counterinsurgency operations in the countryside and not in campuses or during student protest rallies.

Cardema explained that he made the proposal after the head of the Akbayan Youth in UP Los Baños was killed recently in a military encounter with the New People’s Army (NPA) in Laguna. He said he was told by the military that there were 23 such cases involving students of SCUs last year.

He stressed that his proposal merely echoed a statement made by Duterte last year, threatening to revoke the state scholarships of such students and to give them to lumad or indigenous minorities’ children.

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Even with the clarification, students are worried about government surveillance especially during countryside immersion programs that are part of the academic experience in many SCUs.

There is always the possibility that students will meet NPA fighters or supporters during such immersions; there are areas around the country that are communist-influenced. But who can tell if the meeting is intentional or inadvertent?

Cardema said he has no problem with meetings wherein there is no armed anti-government component, where students aren’t encouraged to take up arms.

State surveillance, as far as I know, has been going on since my student days even in school campuses, which are always recruitment grounds for all types of ideologues.

Student surveillance, however, isn’t as benign as certain quarters picture it to be, considering what happened to Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño. The two UP students were conducting research in Bulacan when they ended up at the hands of Army forces under “The Butcher” Jovito Palparan. The students remain missing.

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo and Education Secretary Leonor Briones had to clarify that the government did not intend to revoke state scholarships of students who express anti-government views. Panelo also said it would be up to Cardema to respond to calls for his resignation. Cardema is also accused of conflict of interest, with his wife running in the May elections as a nominee of Duterte Youth.

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As already reported, Cardema said he wasn’t resigning over statements that he claims were misinterpreted. He also would not apologize, as demanded on The Chiefs by LFS spokesperson Kara Taggaoa, to students who felt they were put at risk by his proposal.

Taggaoa is the one who should apologize, Cardema said, “for lying” in claiming that there are no NPA sympathizers in the LFS.

Why did he join the LFS in his college days? He wanted to learn about patriotism, about what would be good for the country, Cardema said: “Every youth leader wants to change the country.”

He was at the stage of youthful exploration, studying different ideas. “I was taking what was good from the left. I was taking what was good from the right,” he said.

And what were the key lessons he learned from this exploration? Filipino youths, he said, need training in citizenship. He noted that national hero Jose Rizal, who like him was born in Calamba, Laguna, declared the youth as the hope of the nation “six generations ago.” But the Philippines, Cardema said, has since been left behind by neighboring states that inculcate patriotism in their citizens at an early age. He cited Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

The youth, Cardema said, must “have a sense of greatness for themselves and their country.”

It would be interesting to find out whether his ideas constitute mainstream thinking among the Pinoy youth.

Cardema isn’t leaving his post any time soon. It looks like President Duterte has exactly the youth commissioner he wants.