MANILA, Philippines — A United Nations human rights expert urged the Philippines on Wednesday to abolish an anti-communist task force that has been accused of targeting government critics.
Former president Rodrigo Duterte set up the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in 2018 to quash a decades-old insurgency.
Related Stories
The task force, which includes the military, has frequently labelled human rights activists, environmental defenders, lawyers and journalists as communist sympathisers, without providing any evidence.
The decades-old practice, known as "red-tagging", can result in the arrest, detention or even death of the person targeted, and exploded under Duterte.
Ian Fry, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, said the government should "disband" the task force and revoke an anti-terrorism law.
The task force was clearly "operating beyond its original mandate and is red-tagging people from the community and indigenous peoples", Fry said at the end of a 10-day visit to the Philippines.
Harassment of "environmental human rights defenders" was prevalent, he said, calling for an independent investigation into the task force's past actions.
"I've heard of cases of torture, disappearance and extrajudicial killings of people, and this is totally unacceptable," Fry told reporters.
"It seems as though the government has lost control of its some of its military organizations."
The Philippines is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for land and environmental defenders, with 11 killed in 2022, according to watchdog Global Witness.
Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano, who is part of the task force, criticized Fry for failing to raise his concerns with the government.
"We could have informed him of the NTF-ELCAC's flagship programs, advocacies, and thrusts to achieve genuine peace, unity and development, especially in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas that once served as hotbeds of communist terrorism," Ano said.
Fry said the government did not have to act on his recommendations, but ignoring them could harm the country's international reputation.
"It undermines their efforts to get support for climate change actions if they're... continuing to allow this sort of behavior," Fry said.