Dangerous recruitment
While the Philippine army continues to deal with insurgents, Filipino citizens are also lured to become mercenaries for Ukraine and Russia — a war they have no business in, Manuel Mogato writes.
Manuel Mogato | April 27, 2026
MANILA — The Armed Forces of the Philippines has warned that young and idealistic university students in Manila were being recruited to join the Maoist-led rebels fighting the government for more than half a century.
The Communist Party of the Philippines, formed in December 1968, and its military arm, the New People’s Army (NPA), have been waging a protracted guerrilla warfare to overthrow a duly elected government. (Also read: The Philippines develops a new defense strategy: “Tatak Kapuluan”)
It has not succeeded, but the rebellion persisted in a few areas in the country, such as the Davao and Caraga regions in Mindanao, and the islands of Samar, Negros, and Mindoro.
Recently, a University of the Philippines (UP) student was killed along with 18 other rebels when they chose to shoot it out with Army soldiers in northern Negros.
Two of the rebels’ fatalities were young activists from the United States, who were descendants of Filipino families that migrated to California.
The death of the UP student and two Filipino-Americans was a disturbing development in the long-drawn insurgency problem in the Philippines.
The military claimed it had reduced the Communist rebels’ strength to not more than 1,000 fighters as it slowly shifted to external and territorial defense. (Also read: Reconfiguring Philippine defense forces)
It is true that the old Communist cadres, who were mostly products of the First Quarter Storm student activism in the early 1970s, were gone.
Former UP professor Jose Maria Sison, who founded the Maoist-oriented rebel movement, is long dead, and so are the top leaders, Benito and Wilma Tiamson.
But the rebel movement continued to attract recruits, not only from the Manila universities, but from the United States.
This is the disturbing part — recruits from abroad.
However, a more dangerous trend has emerged in the country — the recruitment of mercenaries to fight for Ukraine.
Filipinos have no business in fighting either for Ukraine or Russia. That is not a Filipino war.
However, the lure of a lucrative payout for the mercenaries outweighed the danger of fighting for either side.
As of early 2026, there were reports that more than 20,000 foreign mercenaries from dozens of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces — about 2 percent of Ukraine’s total military strength.
These mercenaries sign contracts, receive legal residency support, and serve alongside Ukrainian soldiers, although they might be breaking laws in their own countries for fighting abroad.
For instance, there are stricter laws in Australia and South Korea for their citizens serving under foreign Armed Forces.
But the Philippines has no laws barring its citizens from serving foreign governments. During the Gulf War, many soldiers and police officers filed a long vacation leave to serve in the US Armed Forces as perimeter guards in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They returned to active military and police services after serving one or two tours in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Of course, they were doing it for the money. Thus, the Ukrainian recruitment offer is very enticing - $5,000 a month pay. A one-year stint gives the mercenaries $60,000 if they survive.
The longer these Filipino mercenaries stay in Ukraine, the larger paycheck they get from Kyiv.
If ideology is attracting students to join local Maoist-led insurgents, money has been driving missionaries to join the war in Ukraine.
After the recruitment in the Ukraine war was exposed in the local media, the Department of Foreign Affairs has yet to come up with a detailed report, identifying the Filipinos in the service of the Ukrainian or Russian armed forces. (Also read: The Strategic Intelligence Assessment on Ukraine Putin Underestimated (Part I))
There had been media reports that identified human trafficking centers in the United States and Western Europe that recruit Filipinos to fight for Ukraine.
But nothing has come out from the DFA or from the Armed Forces of the Philippines. There were only anecdotal reports, but no concrete investigation.
If Filipino-Americans were joining the NPAs, the Filipinos recruited to Ukraine are more alarming.
The most troubling reports concern Ukraine’s embassy in linking up with universities in Manila for students seeking adventure in Eastern Europe. (Also read: PH, Ukraine forge stronger alliance amid rising global security threats)
Ukraine’s embassy might also be approaching foreign nationals in Manila, offering high salaries and a possibility of obtaining European citizenship after the conflict.
Ukraine has been sending foreign mercenaries to the most dangerous fronts, resulting in higher casualties among non-Ukrainian fighters.
Most of these mercenaries were no longer paid for their services, and most were listed as missing in the war.
Filipino-Americans killed in the insurgency war in the Philippines are luckier because they can be given a decent burial when their bodies are returned to their families.
In Ukraine, the mercenaries are forgotten.
 | A guest post by
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