Party list rep tagged as NPA recruiter in NTF-Elcac video
Human rights group Karapatan has criticized the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) for releasing a video that “Red-tagged” Kabataan party list Rep. Raoul Manuel.
“This vilification campaign is obviously aimed at misleading and terrorizing the electorate against voting for Kabataan party list,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said in a statement on Monday.
“Unfortunately, the Commission on Elections (Comelec), which promised to issue guidelines on Red-tagging, has not kept up with the spate of Red-tagging videos, tarpaulins and the like that have already been sprouting in many places,” she added.
The group was referring to a video posted on the Facebook page of the NTF-Elcac on Feb. 6, which tagged Manuel as a recruiter for the New People’s Army (NPA). It urged him to “stop pretending” and admit his links to the Communist Party of the Philippines.
The task force claimed that Manuel supported the withdrawal of the Coordinating Council of Private Educational Associations from the NTF-Elcac because “once again, he thinks they are free to recruit [students] in schools.”
“The truth is, it is not the NTF-Elcac who is a threat to academic freedom, but you, Raoul Manuel. You are a recruiter of the NPA and you can no longer lie [about this],” it said.
In response to the video, Karapatan urged the Comelec to issue guidelines against Red-tagging and act on the “many incidents” that had already been reported. It said that the task force uses Red-tagging in order to “sabotage the right of the electorate to hear from progressive and pro-people candidates and exercise discernment.”
