ACT Teachers Representatives Antonio Tinio and France Castro condemned Saturday the death threats hurled against the president of a progressive teachers union in Northern Mindanao.
ACT-Teachers Partylist Representative Antonio Tinio (ALVIN KASIBAN / MANILA BULLETIN)
They lamented that red-tagging of militant organizations in the region continues, as Ophelia Tabacon, ACT chapter president in the region and an elementary school teacher, received her first direct threat.
“The highly paid cowards in the police and military and their anonymous and masked minions can only answer with death threats, intimidation, and lies the legitimate issues which progressives, including our teachers under ACT, raise,” Tinio said in a statement.
“On the other hand, Ma’am Tabacon is a mere elementary school teacher, lowly paid but bravely continues to fight for decent salaries and benefits, who criticize this government’s policies that drive teachers and the Filipino people further into poverty,” he said.
According to Tabacon, a certain Ashley Mendoza messaged her through Facebook Messenger on April 25, saying “Nasa watch list kna 4 kamatayan (You are already on the watch list of people who will die).”
Castro, a union leader herself, said even before Tabacon bacame president of ACT-NMR, she was already advancing the rights and welfare of teachers, lumad children, and other marginalized sectors.
“She was vital in forming ACT-NMR Union, standing up for and protecting the right of teachers’ to better pay and working conditions through unionism,” he said.
The ACT Teachers lament that both the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have tagged ACT and ACT Teachers Party-List as “legal fronts” of the New People’s Army (NPA).
Teachers and ACT’s regional unions are also subjected to profiling by the PNP, which ACT haled to the Court of Appeals as a violation of teachers’ rights to self-organization, privacy, among others, they noted.
While, the national and regional offices of the Department of Education and the Civil Service Commission duly recognized ACT Philippines and ACT NMR.
Tinio and Castro accused the police and military of spreading lies online and offline, including red-baiting memes against progressive mass organizations and urging the public not to vote for party-list and senatorial candidates of Makabayan bloc.
“These online and offline threats form part of the modus operandi of state terrorism,” they said. The ACT Teachers lawmakers already filed complaints with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for electioneering regarding such posts.
“These threats will not make us, including our brave teachers, back down from our legitimate work for the people. Such cowardly acts only provide proof who are the real terrorists,” Tinio and Castro said.
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (AC) Party is a Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) political front organization and is a member of the MAKABAYAN bloc, a coalition of some 12 pro-CPP political parties.
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