Increased militarization and attacks on human rights defenders can cause longstanding effects on children’s growth and development like displacement, forced early participation in the labor force, hunger, and trauma.

By Ruth Nacional
Bulatlat.com

MANILA– Child rights organizations, advocates, church groups, schools, and civil society organizations gathered in a roundtable discussion titled “Stop Killing Children: Bigas, Hindi Bomba! 40 Years of Resistance and the Fight for Justice for Filipino Children” to launch the Children For Just Peace Alliance (C4JPA) on September 10. 

Convened by the Children’s Rehabilitation Center (CRC) and the Salinlahi Alliance for Children’s Concerns, C4JPA is a revamped version of the Children For Peace Alliance (C4PA) which sought to denounce the government’s involvement in the US war against Iraq in 2003 in which children’s rights violations were committed. 

C4PA later evolved according to the sociopolitical context, focusing on human rights violations committed against children during the Aquino administration, Duterte’s martial law in Mindanao, and with the anti-terrorism law and other policies under the government’s counterinsurgency program.

“Now with the Marcos Jr. administration’s National Action Plan for Unity, Peace and Development (NAP-UPD), which ultimately widens state repression under the guise of upholding ‘peace’ with no actual justice for children and communities who are victims of extrajudicial killings, bombings, displacement, and constant fear, C4PA rebrands itself as the Children for Just Peace Alliance, or C4JPA, to emphasize the principle that genuine peace can only be attained with justice,” said Olivia Bernardo, CRC executive director. 

The NAP-UPD, adopted through Memorandum Circular No. 83, is the country’s strategic blueprint to end insurgency and attain inclusive and sustainable peace. The order directed the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) to implement, monitor, and evaluate the programs, activities, and projects under the action plan.

Center for Women’s Resources Executive Director Cham Perez criticized the NAP-UPD’s incoherence as it is a counterinsurgency program patterned after the previous administrations’ and that of the United States’, except sophisticatedly scheming because of the false pretense in which the words peace, unity, and development are used. Its adoption introduced the government’s concept of “terror grooming,” a threat to the right to participation of children, or worse, a pathway to “justify” the killing of children, especially in rural communities. 

Increased militarization and attacks on human rights defenders can cause longstanding effects on children’s growth and development like displacement, forced early participation in the labor force, hunger, and trauma, according to CRC program staff Celine Cadag.
The C4JPA campaign also responds to the United Nations Secretary General’s decision to remove the Philippines from the list of countries with Grave Child Rights Violations (GCRVs) in the 2025 report. “More than the removal[…], this is a clear attempt of Marcos Jr. to posture himself and his administration as a human rights champion, as if to clear the Marcos name marred by corruption and the blood of countless Filipinos,” Cadag said.

Advocacy groups and organizations like the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), Karapatan, and Batibot Early Learning Center supported the campaign by proposing parallel activities, including documentation, solidarity activities, training, children’s activities, and direct services to victims. (RTS, DAA)