OP-ED | The Rapist They Chose to Keep

Amid the noise of “political victories” and the celebrations over the Mayo Uno 6 acquittal, one truth refuses to go away.

The Mayo Uno 6 refers to six youth activists who were recently cleared of all charges from the 2024 Labor Day protest. But while the public celebrated, something darker remained unresolved. Within the youth group at the center of this case, they chose to keep a man accused of serious abuse. They kept a criminal in their ranks, and that fact still haunts their organizations today.

No amount of rhetoric about “rectification” or “ideological renewal” can cover the fact that a man accused by dozens of young women remains inside the organization—protected, enabled, and allowed to continue organizing under the guise of “rehabilitation.”

According to testimonies shared by survivors and former members, based on accounts published online and revelations by former rebels, twenty-four women, many of them minors at the time, came forward to accuse Azrael De Guzman of producing AI-generated sexual content and committing digital sexual exploitation inside the youth organization.

The allegations were not vague whispers. They were detailed, consistent, and painful. Yet the response, as described by those who lived through it, was disturbingly shallow. Instead of transparency, there was secrecy. Instead of consequences, there was a so-called “disciplinary action” that survivors say amounted to little more than a symbolic reprimand. And most painfully, instead of care, the women were left to endure their trauma largely ignored.

Survivors recount how “they were never properly consoled, never given meaningful support, and never provided with a real process of deliberation or justice.” Their pain was treated not as a crisis but as an inconvenience, something to be handled quietly so as not to disrupt the organization’s image or the political work it prioritized above their dignity.

Yet the youth group involved continues to operate as if this man is simply another activist unfairly targeted by the state, as if he is someone worth “reintegrating” for the sake of rectification.

But a rapist is not an activist. A sexual predator is not a comrade in struggle. There is no ideology, no strategic moment, no “higher political unity” that justifies keeping such a person inside any organization that claims to fight for justice.

This is the rot that cannot be glossed over because they chose to keep and protect him. The language of “rectification” becomes a shield for impunity. The promise of “internal healing” has become a tool to silence the ones harmed. And the survivors, who should have been defended first, are left to carry the weight of being forgotten, dismissed, or minimized for the sake of organizational unity.

There is nothing radical about protecting a rapist. There is nothing revolutionary about enabling abuse. Names like Azrael must not be erased from the conversation. They are reminders of violence that came not from an external enemy, but from within, a violence that the organization still refuses to confront with the seriousness it demands.

Until they remove him fully, acknowledge the scope of the harm, and prosecute him to the full extent of the law, every claim of rectification remains hollow. Because the real test of a movement is not how loudly it demands justice in the streets, but whether it can deliver justice to the women it failed behind closed doors.