While expressing sympathy for the death of Bayan Muna Rep. Eufemia Cullamat’s daughter, Jevilyn, the National Security Council (NSC) on Wednesday issued a call not to politicize or romanticize the death of the young woman, stressing that she was a victim of a manipulative armed movement.
NSC Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. made statement as the Makabayan bloc filed a complaint before the Commission on Human Rights against the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for allegedly desecrating the remains of the young Cullamat.
But Esperon said it was her own family rather than the military that should be blamed for her death as “her own mother, Rep. Cullamat, and the entire [members of the] family are allegedly supporters of the armed movement being waged by the New People’s Army [NPA].”
Esperon also called on allies of the leftist movement to realize that Jevilyn “was deceived into sacrificing her life for a cause lacking legitimacy and noble purpose,” and that “she was a victim of [a] manipulative organization that has taken advantage of her from the moment she was radicalized until her recruitment into the armed struggle.”
Jevilyn, 22, was the single fatality during an encounter between the military and the NPA in Marihatag, Surigao del Sur. Her lifeless body was left along a highway after an encounter last month in Barangay San Isidro.
Military reports said Cullamat allegedly served as a medic of the NPA.
According to Esperon, a former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff, Jevilyn was recruited to the NPA fold during her early years as a student at Tribal Indigenous Filipinos Phil-Surigao del Sur and Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development.
He added that Jevilyn graduated to become a full-fledged NPA combatant and medic in the SYP Platoon, Guerilla Front 19.
Esperon, vice chairman of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), reiterated that Makabayan lawmakers are acting as legal fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and NPA.
For his part, Bayan Muna Rep. Ferdinand Gaite said the government’s claim that Cullamat’s death is proof of Makabayan bloc’s link to the CPP is “nothing but a straw man’s [argument] meant to divert from the real issues at hand.”
“But this is no basis to continue red-tagging members of the House of Representatives. [Defense Secretary Delfin] Lorenzana’s claim that Jevilyn’s death is proof of Makabayan bloc’s link to the CPP is nothing but a straw man’s [argument] meant to divert from the real issues at hand. Instead of asking legitimate and duly elected lawmakers in Congress whether we are linked to the CPP-NPA and National Democratic Front [NDF] or not, why not ask why our countrymen continue to join the NPA? Let us address the root of armed conflict instead of forcing us to participate in a national circus of baseless and dangerous accusations!” said Gaite.
The lawmaker also said, “Jevilyn’s death at the hands of the AFP does not prove Makabayan’s link to the CPP-NPA-NDF. The fallacy of guilt by association is most evident in Esperon’s non-sequitur claim.”