BY GILBERT BAYORAN

BACOLOD CITY - A local education official has said that high school enrolment in a town in Negros Oriental has dropped due to massive recruitment of teenagers by the New People's Army (NPA).

School principal Monica Sison said parents told her that their children are being recruited by the NPA, and those who have refused to join stopped going to school and are looking for jobs in urban areas.

Sison said the number of high school enrollees in Barangay Talalac, Santa Catalina, which is being tagged by the military as a guerrilla base of the NPA, dropped from 140 last year to 100 this year.

Government troopers overran a rebel camp in Talalac, which resulted in the death of a soldier and injury of two others. An NPA member was captured.

Digno Lumbo alias Ka Jimbo, who was injured and left behind by his comrades after an encounter with 79th Infantry Battalion soldiers in Talalac, confirmed the presence of a dozen minors in their camp.

This also bolstered the revelations of a rebel recruit identified as Bridget Coyagbo, 19, who surrendered to the 79th Infantry Battalion after the encounter, that several minors have been recruited. She had been assured of ownership of the land her family was farming upon her recruitment.

Coyagbo said the recruits, aged 14 to 16, were among those who managed to escape when soldiers overran the camp on May 27.