By CESAR JOLITO III

The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) has denounced the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) for allegedly glorifying the deaths of five individuals, including former student leader Vince Francis Dingding, killed in a recent encounter in Negros Occidental’s Cauayan town.

In a statement, NTF-ELCAC Executive Director Undersecretary Ernesto Torres, Jr. accused the CPP of turning the deaths into “revolutionary propaganda” instead of mourning the loss of life.

Torres said the five fatalities should not be portrayed as “symbols to be glorified” but as victims of what he described as the CPP’s “deception, manipulation and systematic terror-grooming machinery.”

The task force claimed that the communist movement had long recruited students, workers, peasants, and activists by promoting what it called an “illusion of heroism and revolution,” only for recruits to later become “expendable assets” in the armed struggle.

The statement came after the CPP issued remarks regarding the Cauayan incident, including lines stating that “death is not a universal equalizer.”

NTF-ELCAC criticized the language, saying it reflected a “profound moral bankruptcy” and a growing detachment from human compassion.

“There is nothing noble in leading young people into armed struggle and then celebrating their deaths after the fact,” Torres said.

The task force also emphasized the impact on the families of those killed, saying behind every so-called martyr is “a grieving mother, a broken father [and] a family asking what happened to the child they raised.”

The CPP has yet to issue a response to the latest statement from NTF-ELCAC./CJ, WDJ