From the Manila Times (Sep 2, 2019): Explain Red-tagging, SC asks Palace
THE Supreme Court (SC) has ordered Malacañang to explain a plea of lawyers who had been linked to leftist organizations.
The issue reached the high tribunal after the Court of Appeals (CA) junked the plea for a protection order of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) in connection with a petition for writ of amparo and habeas data they filed after being “Red-tagged.”
The petition cited incidents where NUPL members were harassed by the military and “tagged, threatened, vilified or subjected to surveillance.”
The lawyers demanded that any information that had been gathered by the military be destroyed.
“It is evident from the facts and the circumstances of this case that petitioners, who are members of the Philippine Bar, are targets of an orchestrated plan to sow fear and intrigue among their ranks and membership,” they said.
The high court has ordered Malacañang and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to file their comment on the petition for review of the NUPL.
In denying the issuance of a temporary protection order (TPO), the CA argued that the petitioners had failed to submit a list of their members whom they wanted covered by the TPO and o identify an accredited person or private institution that could provide the protection sought.
It also denied the prayer of the NUPL lawyers to halt the military from issuing public statements against them, saying the rule on amparo “does not provide for the said relief.”
The Ecumenical Bishops Forum (EBF) has expressed concern over Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana’s statement during the Department of National Defense (DND) budget hearing at the House of Representatives, which it interpreted as a “public confession on the military’s role in the surge of Red-tagging incidents.”
During the DND budget hearing, Lorenzana dared congressmen from the Makabayan bloc to denounce the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, for the Red-tagging to stop.
“His statement, made during the hearing for the 2020 budget of the Department of National Defense, is a crystal-clear evidence that the State has been responsible for branding as leftist and communist the individuals and organizations critical of President Rodrigo Duterte’s government,” the EBF said in a statement.
“As Secretary Lorenzana perspicaciously acknowledged the military’s accountability for the various attacks on human rights defenders, peace advocates, political activists and church people, he corroborated the widespread belief that the State has used Red-tagging as a tool to repress the people’s legitimate claims for social, political and economic reforms. His pronouncement is an incontestable confession that the ‘attack orders’ have come from higher offices in the bureaucracy,” it added.
The bishops maintained that vilification activities against “well-meaning political dissenters, advocates and critics” had “stoked fear” to delegitimize people’s call for social justice and discredit legal struggles for democratic change by linking them to the communist movement.
“We call out the evil of reactionary politics that has employed brute force and stoked fear to delegitimize the people’s call for social justice. We decry in the strongest sense the Duterte government’s mischievous act of raising the Red specter across the land by fear-mongering and demonizing the people’s democratic and patriotic aspirations. This is morally and politically wrong,” the EBF said.
It added that Red-tagging of bishops, priests and pastors, and religious and church workers along with accusations that church organizations and programs serve as communist fronts were baseless and had caused “brutish assaults on those implicated.”
“These only aim to defame and discredit faith-based works for the marginalized and underprivileged. The lies hurled at churches are part of the government’s attempt to silence all the many voices speaking against the structural causes of injustice and inequality in the country,” the EBF said.
It called on the government to “refrain from its political vanity of Red-tagging and witch-hunting” and “to stop endangering people’s lives by wrongly calling them leftists and communists.”
The statement was signed by members of the EBF Executive Board, namely Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez Jr. of the Roman Catholic Church, Bishop Rex Reyes Jr. of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, Bishop Joel Tendero of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Bishop Dindo Ranojo of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente and Bishop Ciriaco Francisco of the United Methodist Church.
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