So many young and promising men and women have been killed, just because of that vilest of pied pipers that is the Communist Party of the Philippines and its fronts, legal and illegal. The recruitment process into these organizations, as expert government psychologists have informed me, is much like that of a religious cult: Pick those who are above-average in intelligence, befriend them, probe their weaknesses and capitalize on them, isolate them from their families the better to brainwash them, deluge their brains with propaganda to instill in them deep-seated hate for the government and make it one more small step for them to pick up a gun and shoot at government agents (police, military and officials) labeled as the devil incarnate.

Thus, over the years, young adults who would have otherwise made invaluable contributions to our country were cut down in their prime, raw New People’s Army recruits who met their deaths after having been abandoned by their more senior mentors in the “revolution” during the first few shots in a firefight with government troops. Full of potential, their names have become but footnotes in the chronicles of the war against the longest-running insurgency in the world: Rochelle Mae Bacalso, 21; Justine Ella Vargas, 20, a nursing student (recruited by Gabriela and Pamalakaya); Ren Manalo, 22 (Gabriela); Hope Capampangan, 18 (recruited when she was 16); Hannah Jay Cesista, 26, who had just passed the Bar; the list goes on and on. The price in terms of shattered lives, emotionally tormented families and friends, and losses to the nation’s future is well-nigh unquantifiable.

In the face of these onslaughts, the authorities face an uphill legal battle in protecting the youth of the Philippines. I have witnessed how difficult it is to try to help a minor, one A.J. Lucena, from the clutches of these terrorist groups when I went against the Kabataan Party List, which has been recruiting children as young as 14 from various school campuses right in the middle Manila. In the midst of indifference on the part of school officials, the cumbersomeness of the laws, and the (oftentimes) glacial pace of judicial processes, the guardians of the young are at a distinct disadvantage. The vultures in the legal teams of these criminal fronts know this and exploit them to the hilt.

That is why it is quite satisfying to see that a trial court in Tagum has resisted all the fancy legal footwork of the Left and has decided on the basis of evidence to convict Satur Ocampo and Frances Castro of endangering minors. The charge stems from the use of minors —something in which the Left is most adept — in advancing the legal fronts’ cause of undermining the government in the guise of helping marginalized societies. While the conviction is not for mass murder, for which these “ulalos” of society have often gotten away with (not for long, it is hoped), it is a good start and destroys the veneer of legal invincibility on which these mofos have always gloated. While it involved children, it’s hardly a minor problem for them. After all, it was Hitler’s loss in the Battle of Britain that started the long but steady downward spiral of Germany in World War Two.

Expectedly, the rabid “askals” of their legal team minced no words in condemning the decision, never mind if, as lawyers, they should be well aware of the meaning of the term sub judice (which, by the way, is unethical, but what is legal ethics to killers). What they cannot escape, however, is that their cause is dead and buried, and even the wake for its demise is over. Only the putrid stench of its decay remains.