Red-tagging hobbles free expression and opinion

Freedom of expression and opinion in the Philippines is seriously hampered by the practice of red-tagging, according to Irene Khan, United Nations Special Rapporteur, who wound up a 10-day official visit to the Philippines yesterday.

While government officials she interviewed asserted that the practice is not official policy, Khan noted that activists, journalists and local government officials are particularly affected by the practice, producing a chilling effect on the freedom of expression and fostering a climate of impunity.

In an initial report on her findings, Khan recommended the abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), which last year UNSR for climate change and human rights Ian Fry first recommended. She likewise urged Marcos Jr. to issue an executive order against red-tagging.

Starting from her meeting with the Department of Justice on Jan. 24, the dialogue centered on red-tagging, media killings and impunity. DOJ officials categorically told Khan that there was no red-tagging policy. Further, they said that cases would be pursued against state or non-state actors who engage in red-tagging, and that government encourages red-tagged individuals to provide evidence that would enable the DOJ to take the appropriate legal action.

(Take note that the DOJ has neither pursued legal action against perpetrators nor encouraged victims to submit evidence, despite the unchecked red-tagging engaged in by state security officials and personnel, and even some civilian government officials. In fact, Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla himself, early in his term, had red-tagged activists in his home province of Cavite and elsewhere. He even claimed then that red-tagging is not a crime, but merely part of the exercise of the democratic right to free expression.)

On Jan. 26, at a gathering of Cordillera civil society groups in Baguio City, the UN special rapporteur got an earful of red-tagging complaints. Baguio City officials subsequently sought her assistance, through a formal signed letter signed by Baguio City Vice Mayor Faustino Olowan and all the 14 members of the city council. They asked Khan to facilitate “state accountability on red-tagging and political vilification of people’s organizations and human rights defenders, including indigenous peoples.”

Then last Wednesday, while attending a lecture on international human rights law at the Ateneo Law School auditorium, Khan was once more asked for her opinion about the practice.

At the same time, letters of appeal have been addressed to her by victims who had been arrested and then slapped with trumped-up charges. 

Among them are the environmental activists Jhed Tamano and Jonila Castro, who were abducted in September 2023 and held incommunicado by their abductors for 10 days. The two women were made to sign self-incriminating statements, after which they were publicly presented by the NTF-ELCAC purportedly as “surrenderees.” But in a sudden turnabout, the young women instead declared that they had been abducted, taking their military captors by surprise and causing their immediate release.

The military filed a charge of perjury against Tamano and Castro, which the court dismissed due to insufficient evidence. The DOJ later filed a charge of “grave oral defamation” against each of the two.

In their letter to Khan, the spunky activists wrote: “We believe that the decision to file the charge…is a reprisal against us for speaking the truth. We earned their ire when their might and power could not cover up their lies that we have confronted with our story. We believe they will do anything to silence us because this will cost them their [military] ranks, their privileges, their reputation, their image before the Filipino people and the international community.”

The threat continues, the two activists warned, “not only to our own lives and safety but to hundreds, if not thousands, more people – all of us who have become victims of a government policy of repression and crackdown on protest and dissent.”

Continuously supporting Tamano and Castro is the human rights alliance Karapatan. “We will stand by Jhed and Jona,” Karapatan said. “They represent the victims of abduction and enforced disappearances who are being gagged in speaking out the truth about a state that carries out a campaign of repression against the people.”

Another appeal for help, addressed to the UN special rapporteur, came from two indigenous women from Mindanao. Arrested and detained in Quezon City in July 2021, they have since been charged with trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

One of them is Julieta Tawide Gomez, a Manobo leader from San Luis, Agusan del Sur, a council member of the coalition of Lumad organizations in Caraga. She had been defending ancestral lands against large-scale plunder by mining and plantation projects in the Manobo and Banwaon communities.

The other is Niezel Duaso Velasco from Surigao del Sur, a project officer of the Bread for Emergency Assistance and Development. She had rendered emergency aid and services to indigenous people in Caraga, victims of natural and man-made disasters. She had also worked as a trainor on community-based disaster management in Surigao and Agusan.

Concrete measures were proposed by the Baguio City officials who met with the UN rapporteur. In their meeting with Khan, they discussed documented cases of red-tagging and briefed her on the policies set up by the city government to protect activists. They solicited Khan’s support on the following:

• For the passage of local and national legislation and mechanisms for the protection of freedom of speech and expression, as well as protection for the human rights defenders and journalists; and

• “Technical support from the United Nations on protections and mechanisms for redress with regards to disinformation in cyberspace.”

The city officials informed Khan that in October 2023, they had lodged an appeal to the Anti-Terrorism Council (the implementing arm of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020) to drop four Cordillera activists from its list declaring them as “terrorists,” after being acquitted of the criminal and rebellion charges filed against them by the military. No action has been taken on their appeal.