Red-tagging

EDITORIAL

Government and non-government representatives met at the Baguio City Hall on Jan. 8 to tackle what militant groups said was red-tagging being done on them by armed agencies of government.

Militant groups included the Tongtongan ti Umili-Cordillera People’s Alliance (TTU-CPA). Baguio City legislators and officials from various government agencies also participated in discussing cases of “state-perpetrated political vilification in Baguio and its implications.”  

The meeting, originally set during initial talks in Dec. 19, was supposed to be an audience with Mayor Benjamin Magalong regarding his pronouncements on the safety of activists in the city.

             It became, however, an expanded audience with representatives from the Philippine Army’s 503^rd Infantry Brigade (503^rd IB PA), Police Regional Office Cordillera (PROCOR), the University of the Philippines Baguio (UPB), and the regional offices of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).

“We did not expect the very same forces red-baiting us to be in a meeting about it,” said TTU-CPA chairperson Geraldine Cacho. She added though that they still welcomed this opportunity to get their points across the institutions that they claimed were spearheading the smear campaign against progressive organizations.

                According to her, this latest meeting was a step forward in efforts to confront the issue of political vilification and the dangers of the President’s Executive Order 70 to democracy as it targets the healthy and legitimate exercise of dissent by activist groups.

                Cacho is part of an esteemed panel of activists present during the meeting which included Baguio Outstanding Women Leader for Human Rights Jeannette Ribaya-Cawiding, and Gwangju Prize for Human Rights laureate Joanna Cariño of original Baguio chieftain Mateo Cariño’s lineage.

 “This engagement enabled us to raise the dangerous implications to human rights of the smear campaign by state forces such as the Philippine Army and the Philippine National Police,” she said, adding that state-perpetrated vilification is inimical to people’s safety and security, rights to organize and free expression.  

                Among the cases presented during the meeting were the information and education campaigns (IECs) being conducted by the PNP and the military in schools, including nine recent cases documented by Kabataan Partylist Cordillera in Saint Louis University and Benguet State University.  

                “Our organizations are attacked and red-tagged in these IECs for being progressive and critical against the administration,” said Cacho, saying that this does not only happen in schools, but also in barangays and communities through assemblies mandated by the DILG.

The TTU meanwhile welcomed the presence of councilors Arthur Allad-iw, Vladimir Cayabas, and Levy Lloyd Orcales in the meeting who proposed measures to curb political vilification against progressive groups.

Cacho said clarifications made by Allad-iw on international conventions on human rights and humanitarian law sent a clear message that the conduct of malicious IECs by state forces, sometimes in battle gear, is wrong.

Brig. Gen. Henry Doyaoen denied allegations of red-tagging pledging to “sanction military men who vilify youth organizations," even after students showed photos of military men in schools and personal accounts were bared. 

Commission on Human Rights Cordillera director Rommel Daguimol, a lawyer reminded the panel that entry of armed men in schools is a direct human rights violation and is prohibited as prescribed by the International Conventions and the Child Protection Policy.

                “We encourage our students to be critical, and being critical doesn’t make them terrorists.  If we support red-tagging in schools, we will not be the University of the Philippines that is used to be known as a bastion of critical thinking,” added Dr. Charita Delos Reyes, Director of Students Affairs of UP Baguio.

Despite the absence of the mayor, the TTU urged the local government to guarantee the safety of activists in the city from further political vilification.