A TOP Palace official urged left-leaning groups to blame Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Maria Sison, whom he claimed publicly admitted maintaining a list of legal fronts, including those which has been tagged by the government as linked to the insurgent groups.
In an online press briefing, Undersecretary Severo Catura of the Presidential Human Rights Committee (PHRC) Secretariat also slammed claims of red-tagging by left-leaning groups, saying these were used to discredit the controversial law that seeks to strengthen the Philippines’ anti-terrorism campaign.
Catura likewise said it was Sison who had identified some progressive groups as legal fronts of the CPP, a charge the exiled communist leader has denied.
“Critics of government often correlate red-tagging to [the] anti-terrorism campaign,” said Catura, whose office gives policy advice to President Rodrigo Duterte on human rights issues.
“That term [red-tagging] is simply to diminish the value of having a very effective anti-terrorism law and at the same time it wishes to diminish the efforts of government to address terrorism in our midst,” he added.
He added that those allegedly red-tagged by the government wanted to “move forward an agenda that they are being persecuted when in fact they are not. The Philippine government has never red-tagged anyone.”
“If they are being red-tagged, how come we do not see cases of unjust detention, of suppression, of physical harassment that are being referred to the proper accountability mechanisms of the state?” he added.
In a recent public address, Duterte said that they are not red-tagging leftist organizations, but directly identifying them as such. Among those that the President referred to include the Makabayan bloc, Gabriela, and Bayan of conniving with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF).
Makabayan lawmakers strongly denied the President’s claim even as they challenged him to file charges against them in court.
(Photo: Jose Maria Sison’s Facebook page)