‘50s-Style McCarthyism Comes to the Philippines
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New People's Army operatives (Source: Intelligencefusion.co.uk)
The anti-communist hysteria was whipped up by Senator Joseph McCarthy, who launched a sustained campaign against alleged communists in the US government and other institutions, including even in Hollywood, in the period between 1950 and 1954. Many of those accused by McCarthy were blacklisted or lost their jobs, although most did not actually belong to the Communist Party or supported its goals.
That led to the term McCarthyism to refer to the use of public platforms to attack those with leftist and progressive ideas as card-carrying communists and therefore to be shunned by the rest of society, or even sent to jail for "un-American activities."
We are witnessing today in the Philippines the same attempt to stir up public resentment and hatred against those espousing views opposed to those held by ardent supporters of the current occupant of the Palace by the Pasig River. This spells perilous times for critics of the government, who face the very real threat of arrest and detention for trumped-up charges, or even extrajudicial killing.
The reality now is that the same McCarthyism that found a ready audience among Americans in the early ‘50s is well and alive in the Philippines, and it is being driven apparently by Duterte himself to hold on to power by all means necessary until his term ends officially in 2022.
Where is Red-tagging coming from?
Red-tagging in the Philippines at present is actually the offshoot of the Duterte administration's all-out war to put an end to the armed rebellion waged by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed component, the New People's Army (NPA), for more than 50 years now.
Duterte had initiated the resumption of formal peace talks with the National Democratic Front (NDF), the political arm of the CPP-NPA, shortly after he assumed office in mid-2016. He even offered the rebels several Cabinet positions to show that he was sincere in talking peace with the communist-led insurgency.
Duterte and the NDF peace negotiators in Malacanang in the earlier, friendlier days of his administration.
But the political negotiations held in The Hague, Netherlands with the Norwegian government acting as mediator did not reach any substantial agreement as these were held without a bilateral ceasefire in place. Such a ceasefire would have given both sides breathing space from the fighting and allowed them to focus on proposed reforms aimed at addressing the roots of the armed conflict, namely poverty and social injustice.
Instead, the intense fighting in the countryside -- even while the representatives from both sides tried to reach agreement on economic, social, political and electoral reforms as a prelude to demobilization of rebel forces -- made Duterte reach the end of his patience and declare the cessation of peace talks. He ordered the armed forces to go hammer and tongs after the rebels.
The result: the Armed Forces of the Philippines has mounted search-and-destroy operations starting in 2017 in known NPA lairs mainly in Southern Tagalog and Bicol regions in Luzon island, Central Visayas, and parts of the southern island of Mindanao that continue to this day, leading to mounting casualties on both sides and with no end in sight to the fighting.
Duterte has vowed to end the communist-led rebellion before he steps down in mid-2022. Part of his strategy to is to conduct peace talks at the local level. This is being implemented through the ad hoc National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) headed by his key defense and security officials who come mostly from military backgrounds.
The Task Force spokesman, Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade, now head of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Southern Luzon Command, has been the loudest voice in tagging critics as members and supporters of the CPP. He has publicly accused elected party list-representatives in Congress belonging to the Makabayan (Nationalist) bloc as card-carrying members of the CPP. He has also tagged a popular female actress, Angel Locsin, as an NPA sympathizer, claiming that her sister had actually joined the rebel group, a charge that Angel vehemently denied.
Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade of the NTF-ELCAC is the loudest Red-tagger of all. (Source: SovereignPH)
The outspoken general also cautioned another popular screen figure, Liza Soberano, to stay away from any link or association with Gabriela, a party-list group espousing women's rights and welfare, after she joined an online forum on women's issues. He then warned that Soberano could end up just like a young female NPA combatant killed by government troopers in a recent encounter.
Actresses Angel Locsin and Lisa Soberano (right) are among those being Red-tagged. (Source: Instagram)
Another key member of NTF-ELCAC, Lorraine Badoy, an undersecretary in the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), is just as vocal as the general in her anti-communist rants. She recently accused CNN (Cable News Network) Philippines of harboring leftists in its ranks after it aired an appeal by a group, the League of Filipino Students (LFS), for donations of cash or in kind to victims of recent destructive typhoons that displaced thousands of Filipinos from their homes.
As its name implies, the NTF-ELCAC seeks to encourage peace talks at the local level, in contrast to the stand of the CPP-NPA-NDF that talks should be centralized at the national level, with government representatives facing the designated NDF representatives across the negotiating table. The Task Force wants NPA guerrillas and supporters to give up the armed struggle in return for housing and livelihood assistance once they decide to return to the mainstream of society.
It's not clear how many NPA members have surrendered since 2017, or how many villages have been freed from NPA presence or influence. But the ad hoc NTF has been criticized in the legislature and in traditional and social media for asking nearly P20 billion as its budget for next year, ostensibly to help a number of barangays (villages) already considered cleared of NPA influence with livelihood opportunities and farm-to-market roads, as these would only duplicate efforts by other government agencies.
The communist-led armed rebellion had begun in 1968 with the founding of the CPP on a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideological foundation, and a few months later, the formation of the NPA as a guerrilla army. At its height, the NPA is said to have reached its peak in the 1980s with 25,000 guerrillas, but the military believes the rebels have now dwindled in number to no more than 4,000 spread out in various regions of the archipelago. If the NPA is a spent force, why even bother to spend billions of pesos more to go after them when the AFP already gets one of the biggest appropriations budgets in the annual budget?
Where is Red-tagging leading to?
Despite the far fewer number of Maiost rebels now than two decades ago, the Philippine military considers the NPA as one of two major security threats, the other one being the terrorists groups in Mindanao who have shown allegiance to the Islamic State. Hence, the military monitors the activities of both underground communist cells and the legal organizations established along sectoral lines, such as labor, peasantry, women, youth and students, the religious, and indigenous peoples.
And just what the government did in the case of the campaign against illegal drugs, where it has drawn up a so-called list of purported drug traffickers unsupported by sufficient evidence, it has also drawn up a list of organizations and individuals that it says are deeply involved in the rebel movement.
The Duterte government sees Reds seemingly everywhere. It considers the Makabayan bloc of party-list representatives, legal organizations/ coalitions like Bayan, various youth groups, and even Catholic bishops as communists. The Rural Missionaries Philippines composed of nuns and lay persons has actually had their bank accounts frozen by the government because the military said their funds were being used to fund terrorist activities.
President Rodrigo Duterte (Source: PCO)
The reckless accusations without any iota of evidence against suspected communists send a chilling effect on freedom of expression by those who question corruption and gross inefficiency on the part of government and its inability to solve the longstanding problem of mass poverty and unbridled corruption, from the national level down to the local and every branch of government: executive, legislative and judicial.
Red-tagging also leaves legitimate critics of government vulnerable to a double-barreled attack, from rebellion charges under the Revised Penal Code as well as warrantless arrest and extended detention from the provisions of the recently approved Anti-Terror Law.
In the final analysis, Red-tagging, will undermine the foundations of Philippine democracy and curtail the exercise of freedoms and rights guaranteed by our Constitution, including freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the right to peaceably assemble to articulate legitimate grievances.
Fighting back: Why Red-tagging is resolutely opposed
Those who have found themselves on the receiving end of baseless accusations from the NTF-ELCAC are not taking all this sitting down and are actually fighting back.
The Makabayan bloc currently composed of six representatives from the party list groups Bayan Muna, Gabriela, ACT Teachers and Kabataan has been branded by no less than Duterte himself as a front of the CPP.
For Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate, Makabayan works for social reforms through elections and legislation, but that “as a matter of principle, we cannot condemn the people’s option to (resort to) armed struggle because we believe that it is a legitimate option of the people when faced with a foreign invader, a tyrant or a dictator such as Marcos or Idi Amin.”
Zarate asserted that his group would challenge any disqualification case filed against them in the proper forum. Since the Arroyo administration, the government has not succeeded in disqualifying the Makabayan party-list groups from taking part in elections because they have proved their qualifications as legitimate political parties, he added.
From her detention cell in Camp Crame, Sen. Leila de Lima blasted the President for going on a “Red-tagging rampage” against Makabayan.
The detained senator said the President’s tirade was “clearly a diversionary tactic...Duterte’s blabbering is an everyday reminder of this administration’s failed pandemic response. The only thing he is capable of doing is to create distractions to mask his ineptitude...Duterte should stop evading the issue on the persecution of the Makabayan bloc and critics and defenders of the truth and human rights.”
Over at the House of Representatives, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman said he believes that the NTF-ELCAC has been using a “budgetary hoax” to justify its nearly P20-billion budget and vowed to scrutinize it as a member of the bicameral conference committee that would tackle the P4.5-trillion 2021 national spending bill.
“The Red-tagging initiated by the military and police against government critics [is an] agenda to rationalize the] billions [of pesos] of budgetary allocation for ELCAC,” the lawmaker said.
Lagman said the money allocated for the task force next year could be best used to fund the recovery of typhoon-damaged provinces instead of spending it in moves against Makabayan, students, religious leaders, politicians and movie personalities the NTF-ELCAC had unfairly tagged as either members or sympathizers of the communist movement.
The militant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) has accused law enforcers of planting evidence on red-tagged activists and farmers, saying this was the usual handiwork of the police and the military. KMP Chairman Danilo Ramos cited the need to oppose Red-tagging as this puts activists and farmers in danger of being “illegally arrested” or, worse, killed. "That is why we should stand up, fight for our rights, oppose Red-tagging and terrorist labeling. Together we will oppose and fight the Anti-Terror Law."
Should Red-tagging be made a crime?
In a surprising move, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chair of the Senate national defense and security panel and principal author of the dreaded Anti-Terror Law, recently suggested that Red-tagging, or the branding of government critics and activists as communists, or enemies of the state, could be declared a criminal act.
In a surprise move, Senator Ping Lacson, a former chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), suggested that Red-tagging may be a criminal act. (Source: Youtube)
“As a matter of fact, I am seriously considering the recommendation to criminalize Red-tagging as long as such legislation will not infringe on the Bill of Rights involving freedom of speech and expression,” he said.
For her part, opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros said further study might be needed to determine if there was a need to criminalize Red-tagging as “constitutional principles alone should suffice...If we consider freedom of conscience and freedom of association, as long as one does not carry arms, everyone should be free from Red-tagging. People have the right to hold beliefs as long as they do not commit any crime.
Bayan Muna chairman Neri Colmenares said the party-list and allied groups supported the criminalization of Red-tagging. He said this is a more definitive legal recourse than simply filing libel complaints against officials involved in branding critics of the administration as communists. Red-tagging “entails the use of government resources and funds to target people based on their political beliefs,” and falsely accuses people as armed combatants, he said. This is an affront to the constitutional right to freedom of expression, he explained.
The human rights group Karapatan has gone a step further and filed a criminal complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman against three high- ranking officials of the NTF-ELCAC and another government official over their alleged relentless Red-tagging activities. In the complaint, the Karapatan named as respondents National Security Adviser Gen. (Ret.) Hermogenes Esperon Jr., AFP Southern Luzon Command chief Lt. Gen. Parlade and PCOO Undersecretary Badoy for their continuing Red-tagging. Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) Undersecretary Mocha Uson was also included in the charge sheet because of her Facebook posts suggesting a connection between the human rights organization and the CPP-NPA-NDF.
Red-tagging, according to Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay, is considered a violation of Republic Act No. 9851 or the “Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide, and Other Crimes Against Humanity.” The officials were also accused of violation of Republic Act No. 3019 or the “Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act.” Under Section 6h of RA 9851, “persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law,” is considered a crime against humanity.
“This has to stop. Instead of denigrating and imperiling people for their lawful exercise of their constitutionally-guaranteed freedom of expression, the government should take note and address legitimate criticisms of its policies,” said Palabay. “Respondent public officers should be held criminally and administratively liable for the aforementioned acts that malign, vilify and baselessly Red-tag me and Karapatan along with its officers and members,” she added.
“The same McCarthyism that found a ready audience among Americans in the early ‘50s is well and alive in the Philippines, and it is being driven apparently by Duterte himself to hold on to power by all means necessary until his term ends officially in 2022”
From where we sit, the Red-tagging by the Duterte administration portends dark days ahead as it could open the floodgates to more killings, arrests and imprisonment of those who are critical of government policies and have dared to challenge the Duterte administration's increasingly authoritarian bent. Carried to extreme lengths, the anti-communist hysteria is a grave and present threat to Philippine democracy that could even transform the entire country into a killing field similar to what happened in Indonesia in 1965, when half a million suspected communist party members and sympathizers were systematically killed by security forces and paramilitary groups and many more rounded up and sent to prison for years on end.
The Duterte administration should put an end to the Red-tagging and instead work towards the resumption of the cancelled formal peace talks between the government and the NDF. This should be pursued with a mutually agreed upon ceasefire that would create the proper atmosphere for both sides to discuss substantive reforms and demonstrate their sincerity and good faith in reaching a comprehensive peace agreement.
All-out war against the so-called "enemies of the state" will only foment more division in Philippine society, lead to needless loss of lives, and cause political instability, economic decline and social unrest that the nation can ill-afford at this juncture in our history.
Ernesto M. Hilario
Ernesto M. Hilario studied Political Science at the University of the Philippines and has worked for various government agencies, NGOs and mainstream media since 1978. He writes a regular column for the Manila Standard broadsheet and also works as a freelance writer-editor.
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