‘Red-baiting not government policy, communists tagging themselves’

MANILA, Philippines — “Red-tagging” or “red-baiting” is not a policy of the Duterte administration, and communist leaders themselves are the ones who have identified front organizations and party-list groups as participants in the armed insurgency and political campaign to overthrow the government, state security officials told a Senate inquiry yesterday.

Also testifying before the Senate committee on national defense and security chaired by Sen. Panfilo Lacson were former top commanders of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and New People’s Army (NPA), the armed and political factions of the communist National Democratic Front (NDF), respectively.

National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., also vice chairman of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF ELCAC), said the CPP-NPA-NDF is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, the European Union, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

“On the issue of red-tagging, red-tagging or red-baiting, regardless of the definitions created and adopted by the front organizations, is unequivocally not a matter of policy within the ELCAC program,” Esperon told the committee.

“Red-tagging is fully inconsistent with what ELCAC is all about, in my humble mind, no benefit can be derived from it, that is why it is inconceivable to even consider engaging in such activity. ELCAC is a development-centered undertaking; if anything we always supported the dissemination of truth,” he said.

He added government red-tagging has no factual basis and cannot be attributed to any past or current government policy, program or activity.

Raising the issue of red-tagging by communist front organizations is part of their many ruses to deflect and distance themselves from the CPP-NPA-NDF, he said.

The panel held the hearing after NTF ELCAC spokesman and Southern Luzon Command chief Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade made controversial remarks in social media warning actresses Liza Soberano and Angel Locsin and Miss Universe Catriona Gray against being duped into the communist movement through Gabriela, a militant group identified as a front organization for the CPP-NPA-NDF.

Some of his warnings to Soberano were seen as sort of threat, when he warned that she could meet the same fate as the young female NPA guerilla who died in a firefight.

There is a pending case before the courts where the government is seeking to proscribe the CPP-NPA-NDF as a terrorist organization.

The six left-leaning partylist representatives from the Makabayan bloc, who were invited to the inquiry, skipped the hearing and instead sent lawyer Maneeka Sarza to read a joint letter from them.

“We are hoping that you would not allow your committee and the Senate as a launching pad for red-tagging and terrorist-tagging, a policy that United Nations Special Rapporteurs have repeatedly warned paves the way for political killings, fabricated charges and other human rights violations,” the party-list lawmakers stated in their letter written in Filipino.

At the start of the hearing, Lacson said red-tagging could harm the government’s efforts to improve law enforcement – particularly implementing the Anti-Terrorism Law – and trigger human rights violations. Lacson is an author and principal sponsor of the law.

“When no distinction has been made between an activist and a terrorist, an idealist and an extremist, a reformist and a subversive, we risk putting everyone under a cloud of suspicion and our society in a constant state of insecurity,” the senator warned.

“To say the least, the alleged red-tagging is a crisis in itself. Rightly or wrongly, it stirs public outcry and imperils our conscientious effort to uphold and protect human rights in the country while strengthening our law enforcement measures,” he said.

Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa, a former chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), welcomed the inquiry even as he recalled the hearing he held last year on the missing teenagers, who were later found to be NPA members, based on the testimonies of their parents.

“It is about time we call a spade a spade. Enough of the 50 years of deception and duplicity of the terrorist CPP-NPA-NDF against our countrymen. They are the obstacles to the progress of our nation, especially in the countryside,” Dela Rosa said Filipino and English.

Sen. Grace Poe, however, urged officials in government to encourage discussion and free flow of ideas that are essential for democracy to flourish.

“We have to provide democratic space for ideas to contend, for as long as it is done peacefully. I think that for political discourse to be rich, it should represent all colors in the flag – red, blue, yellow, white,” Poe said at the hearing.

She said democracy is made richer by the exchange of ideas and should never endorse or promote violence.

“Everyone has a right to pursue an ideology and should not be penalized for harboring thoughts. But when one uses or endorses the use of violence to promote or enforce that ideology, it crosses the line and it is illegal,” Poe said.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros opposed the NTF-ELCAC’s P19-billion proposed budget for 2021 even as she questioned the priorities of the Department of National Defense in focusing on the communist insurgency instead of focusing on external threats like “China’s continued incursions in our seas as well as her 40 percent ownership of a telecommunications company inside our military camps.”

“Is this not a more imminent and more compelling threat? We’re focused too much on the CPP-NPA-NDF – the remnants of an insurgency facing imminent defeat in the battlefield – but we don’t complain in letting into the country a foreign country. So who is the biggest threat to national security? A waning insurgency, or an external threat from a superpower country?” Hontiveros said.

During the hearing, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año and National Intelligence Coordinating Agency director general Alex Monteagudo showed video clips where CPP founder Jose Ma. Sison, who has been in self-exile in the Netherlands since the 1980s, identified various front organizations as part of the communist insurgency, including Bayan, Kilusang Mayo Uno, Gabriela, Alliance of Concerned Teachers, League of Filipino Students, among others.

Año and Monteagudo said it was Sison himself that red-tagged the organizations as part of the CPP-NPA-NDF.

Upon questioning from Hontiveros, Esperon said the CPP-NPA-NDF remains the “No.1 political security threat” to the country.

A PNP official said from 2010 to 2020, the NPA was responsible for 90 percent of the 5,000 armed incidents recorded where there were combatant and civilian casualties.

“Rape, extortion”

Former NPA leaders also testified before the hearing, some by video conference, others physically present in the Senate session hall.

Jeffrey Celiz alias Ka Eric, who once was the head of the NPA’s National Operational Command, said the armed group has no compunction in recruiting minors, with a top commander at one time bragging that the organization was able to recruit 8,000 high school students.

While rape was supposed to be punishable by death in the NPA, those committing them were rarely punished since most of the perpetrators were top commanders or leaders, Celiz said.

Also testifying was Lady Desiree Miranda, who joined a front organization when she was 14 years old and joined the NPA when she was 18. Miranda said she was raped by a commander when she was 19 years old and again when she turned 20.

When she reported the incident, she was branded as having post-traumatic stress disorder syndrome.

Miranda said abuse and sexual exploitation of female NPA rebels by their superiors was commonplace. She said organizations have a women’s forum where such matters were discussed.

It was also learned during the hearing that the CPP-NPA-NDF raises funds through “revolutionary taxation” or extortion as security officials call it, amounting to P200 million to P300 million annually. A significant chunk of the collections come from telecommunications companies that put up cell sites in remote areas.

Celiz and other security officials also disclosed some P300 million annually is also raised from abroad through donations or grants from foreign groups or organizations that believe they are supporting development NGOs, but are also financial conduits for the CPP-NPA-NDF.

Celiz said 40 percent of the collections go to Sison’s group in the Netherlands while 60 percent is withheld by local commanders.

Monteagudo said the government has been making headway in convincing foreign donors that they are being duped into donating to an armed group responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the last 52 years.

“From our sources on the inside, we heard they are running out of funds,” Monteagudo told the inquiry.