The parents of former student leader Vince Francis Dingding, who was killed during a recent armed encounter in Cauayan, Negros Occidental, have appealed to both authorities and the CPP-NPA-NDF to spare their family from further distress.
In a handwritten letter dated 18 May, signed by Romulo and Rica Dingding, the parents requested that all matters related to their son’s death be coursed through their barangay captain.
The family also revealed that Vince’s mother is currently battling colon cancer and has been strictly advised to avoid stress to aid her recovery.
“We decided that we will no longer claim his remains in Negros Occ.,” the parents wrote in a postscript to the letter.
Meanwhile, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict expressed grief over what it described as another tragedy linked to the armed communist movement.
In a statement sent to DAILY TRIBUNE, the task force said the death of Dingding reflected not only the loss of a young life but also the emotional devastation inflicted on families caught in the conflict.
“It is a painful story of a son lost to a movement that gradually pulled him away from home, from family, and from the people who loved him most,” the NTF-ELCAC said.
The task force described the parents’ decision not to claim their son’s remains as one of the “saddest sentences a parent could ever write.”
“Those words may be among the saddest sentences a parent could ever write. No mother and father dream of reaching a point where grief becomes so overwhelming, pain becomes so unbearable, and emotional wounds become so deep that they can no longer bring themselves to claim the remains of their own child,” the statement read.
According to NTF-ELCAC, Dingding was previously active in student leadership circles at University of the Philippines Cebu from 2014 to 2015 and was reportedly linked to Kabataan Cebu before allegedly joining underground armed groups in 2017.
The task force claimed Dingding later assumed political and organizational roles within various NPA units operating in Negros.
“This is not an isolated case,” the task force said, adding that similar stories involving young activists and armed recruitment have surfaced repeatedly through the years.
The NTF-ELCAC maintained that the deeper damage caused by the armed movement is often found in “family bonds broken, parents left in anguish, and homes permanently scarred by grief.”
“No ideology, no political objective, and no false promise of revolution is worth destroying the bond between a parent and a child,” the statement added.
