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The chief of the Armed Forces, Gen. Gilbert Gapay, said Thursday that he expected Facebook to reopen a page launched by a group of parents whose children were “recruited” into the ranks of the New People’s Army (NPA).
Among the closed pages was the “Hands off our children” movement, which the Philippine army confirms is assisted by one of its officers.
“The Armed Forces of the Philippines regret Facebook’s decision to remove the page for Hands Off Our Children, a campaign launched by a group of parents fighting to protect their children from violent extremism,” Gapay said in a statement.
He defended the movement saying that the grievances of the parents were “legitimate and their calls [are] urgent ”, and that the NPA’s recruitment of students has long been found to“ victimize students, conditioning them to become cadres and armed members of the New People’s Army ”.
Facebook shut down pages that were traced back to the Philippine military and police and displayed screenshots of posts as the “red labels” of progressive groups for allegedly having strong ties to the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the NPA.
Last Wednesday, Gapay met with Facebook Philippines head of public policy, Clare Amador.
Major General Edgard Arévalo, spokesman for the AFP, said that Gapay “urged” Amador and his team to “investigate the process they observe in the unilateral elimination of accounts and that they take due account of the cause that the account holder defends to eliminate the doubts of FB is partisan “.
Gapay specifically asked “if FB can restore Hands Off Our Children and other groups with similar defenses such as preventing child exploitation and trafficking of minors and fighting terrorism that may have been taken down,” said Arevalo.
But he acknowledged that the possibility of restoring the Hands Off Our Children page and other pages was minimal.
One of the officers whose Facebook account was deleted was Army Captain Alex Cabales, head of the Army Social Media Center.
Colonel Ramón Zagala, an Army spokesman, reacted to a report that said Cabales’ account was among those that were eliminated and that he admitted to being the administrator of Hands Off Our Children.
At the same time, Zagala said that the Army would also speak with Cabales upon his arrival in Manila from Sulu.
“We have a social media manual that we hold in high regard, that our staff will act appropriately on social media,” Zagala said in an online interview, adding that the closure of Cabales’ social media account could have been related to the removal of the page Hands off our children.
Zagala said the discussion with Facebook would also include questions about what content Cabales posted that warranted closing his page.
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