Manila seeks removal from UN list

Manila: The government has called for the removal of the Philippines from the list of countries with children at war, adding it has condemned rebel groups that are involved with such a practice, a senior official said.

"The Philippine government has established a legal firewall for the protection of children [so that they would not be involved in the country's civil war]," said Hilario Davide, the country's envoy to the United Nations.

"The Philippines condemns non-state actors in the country who recruit, abduct, and use children, yet deny their illegal and unjustifiable deeds," Davide said, adding that the UN must focus on other countries with more children war fighters.

Davide made the call during a meeting of the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict in New York on May 8, the transcript of which reached Manila's foreign affairs department.

The Philippine government wants to revoke the list of the United Nations which had included in 2005, the communist New People's Army (NPA), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the Abu Sayyaf, a local terror group, as recruiters of children as combatants, said Davide.

The list was made following a resolution by the Security Council.

The NPA denied having recruited children as non-combatants, but government soldiers said they have arrested leftist children at war. The MILF has also denied having recruited children for war.

But a Unicef study said the MILF is known for recruiting and training orphans as fighters.