MANILA — The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) on Friday warned of “terrorist-grooming” operations allegedly targeting Filipino students.

NTF-ELCAC Executive Director Undersecretary Ernesto Torres Jr. issued the warning following a speech by Julieta De Lima, Chair of the Negotiating Panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, before the League of Filipino Students during its 21st National Congress earlier this week.

Torres said the speech went beyond discussing social issues, affirming the framework of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and intensified recruitment on campuses, linking student organizing to the Communist Party, the New People’s Army (NPA), and allied underground networks.

“Let us be clear: activism is not the issue. Debate is not the issue. Criticism of (the) government is not the issue. What concerns us is the open call to intensify recruitment and strengthen structures aligned with a movement that has long pursued armed struggle against the democratic State,” he said.

He said that when young people are “systematically conditioned and directed toward violent revolution, that is terrorist-grooming.”

“These are not abstract ideas. They form part of a decades-old revolutionary blueprint. The insurgency does not begin in the mountains. It often begins in classrooms – through ideological consolidation, study circles, and gradual conditioning,” Torres added.

Torres noted that former NPA members have testified that recruitment pipelines often start with ordinary campus activism before progressing into structured underground participation.

“What appears to be harmless organizing can evolve into a deliberate pathway toward armed engagement. That is not spontaneous activism. That is structured cadre-building. That is terrorist-grooming,” he said.

The NTF-ELCAC official also raised concern over reports of organized recruitment targets, formation of “squads” of prospective members, and systematic campus expansion efforts.