Former UPLB student dies in firefight with gov’t troops
INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Brigadier General Randolph Cabangbang, commander of the Army’s 203rd Infantry Brigade, on Wednesday (Nov. 22, 2023) said a former student from a prominent university who joined the New People’s Army (NPA) perished in a recent firefight with government troops in Gloria, Oriental Mindoro.
Prior to this, news stories cited a police report about the death of two rebels identified only as Rochie and Bondo.
“One student from the UPLB (University of the Philippines Los Baños) died last week in one of our combat operations. He is Jethro Isaac Ferrer a.k.a. Bondo, a member of the LGBTQ community,” Cabangbang told the media during a virtual press conference hosted by the Integrated Communications Operations Center (ICOC), the media bureau of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
Ferrer was a native of Pangasinan; his body was already claimed by his parents for proper burial.
According to Cabangbang, Bondo left a partner who is also a UPLB student in the NPA organization.
Cabangbang identified Ferrer’s partner as Yvann Zuñiga a.k.a Paolo.
“Based on our information, they’re both members of the LGBTQ and they got married in the organization,” he said.
The General specifically calls on Zuñiga to leave the Communist Terrorist Group (CTG) for the sake of his safety and brighter future, return to the fold of the law, and start a brand new life.
He rued the death of Ferrer to what he calls the insensitivity of responsible school officials for allowing legal fronts to infiltrate them and took away the future of their students for naught.
“You’re the cause (of all these deaths). Somebody should take responsibility,” Cabangbang said, also partly blaming parents for doing nothing to prevent their children from being radicalized and then ending up in the mountains only to die in a senseless and obsolete protracted war.
“But not all parents are to blame for their children’s misguided path,” he said.
In other recent encounters, Cabangbang said a certain Jessie Almoguera was killed in combat. His family was informed about his demise.
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