LARA, Stefanie Kim A.

STEM 101

01 eLMS Activity 2 – ARG

1. Look for a news article on the newspaper or online that tackles about the country’s current
political issues.
2. Summarize and reflect on it.

“Red-Tagging” and Harassment of Activists

Civil society organizations were accused by government and military officials of supporting the
communist New People's Army (NPA) militants, who had been fighting for 53 years in the
Philippines. In the Philippines, false charges like this are part of a practice called "red-tagging,"
which exposes the accuser to a higher danger of attack from the police or unidentified gunmen.
The military, police, and other national security forces regularly exploited social media to issue
"red tagging" threats, in a number of cases, the targets of these threats were later murdered by
unidentified assailants. Leni Robredo, the former vice president who lost to Marcos in the most
recent presidential election, is one of people that the task team has red-tagged.

Red-tagging is an important facet of the human rights crisis in the Philippines, which became
even more acute when Duterte was elected president. Red-tagging has gained significant critical
local and international attention in recent years. Human rights advocacy is frequently linked with
terrorism, according to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United
Nations, and attention is diverted away from the message's content to attack the messengers.

SOURCE:

https://www.newmandala.org/red-tagging-as-a-human-rights-violation-in-the-philippines/

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/philippines#5b8840