Why should we say #NoToRedTagging? Antonio Parlade Jr. and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict are deliberately twisting facts and spreading lies against the Left to justify the government's crackdown on dissent. Here's a short thread of some fast facts:
Legal democratic forces—among them mass organizations, alliances, and duly-elected party-lists—are not "fronts" of communists rebels. The act of red-tagging peddles this dangerous lie that infringes upon international humanitarian law and the people's right to freely organize.
Why? Red-tagging maliciously and deliberately blurs the distinction between armed rebel combatants and unarmed civilian activists in order to justify state violence against activists and human rights defenders. Red-tagging—among many other things—is a very insidious death threat.
Furthermore, the government is using "counterterrorism" as a deceptive front to legalize its fascist crackdown on both civilian activists and rebel combatants by falsely tagging them as "terrorists"—which will be further empowered once the Anti-Terrorism Act takes full effect.
Under Philippine laws, being a communist rebel is still not terrorism: the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army are yet to be legally declared as a terrorist group. Being part of the party is also not illegal since the Anti-Subversion Law was repealed.
In fact, that Philippine government recognizes communist rebels as parties to armed conflict with the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
Instead of addressing the legitimate roots of armed conflict to achieve just and lasting peace, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict is simply a fascist task force whose job is to crack down on dissent—and this task force should be defunded and abolished.
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