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National Security Advisor, General Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Head of the AFP Southern Luzon Command (SOLCOM), Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade Jr., and OWWA Usec. Mocha Uson.
MANILA, Philippines – Human rights group Karapatan filed a criminal complaint on Friday against three high-ranking officials of the National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and another government official for their alleged relentless activities. red labeling.
In the complaint filed with the Office of the Ombudsman, Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay named the defendants as National Security Advisor, General Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Comando del South Luzon (SOLCOM), Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr., and the Deputy Secretary of the Office of Presidential Communications Operations, Lorraine Badoy, who also sits at the same time as a spokesperson for NTF-Elcac, for her continued red labeling.
The undersecretary of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), Mocha Uson, was also mentioned due to her Facebook posts suggesting a connection between the human rights organization and the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army- National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA).
In the 2005 Zarate v. Alvarez case, Judge Marvic Leonen defined red labeling as “the act of labeling, marking, naming, and accusing individuals and / or organizations of being left-wing, subversive, communist, or terrorist (used as) strategy. … By State agents, in particular law enforcement agencies and the military, against those they perceive as ‘threats’ or ‘enemies of the State’ ”.
According to Palabay, members of the organization “have experienced in this context relentless attacks from the following respondents in the form of malicious labeling of red / terrorist or red bait, which consists of unfounded and dangerous accusations of being a front organization of the Communist Party Party of The Philippines and the New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) ”.
The red labels, according to Palabay, are considered a violation of Republic Law No. 9851 or the “Philippine Law on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity.”
The officials were also accused of violating Republic Law No. 3019 or the “Law against bribery and corrupt practices”.
Crimes against humanity
By virtue of Section 6h or RA 9851, “the persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity for political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender or other reasons that are universally recognized as inadmissible under international law”, is considers it a crime against humanity. .
The complaint details that on two separate occasions, Esperon “allowed the publication of various defamatory and offensive statements” by NTF-ELCAC against Karapatan.
Palabay said in a post posted on the NTF-ELCAC Facebook page on April 24, it mentioned the Karapatan Alliance Philippines on an incomplete list of the NPA’s “legal front.” Another post on May 29 described the organization as an “Open Human Rights Alliance led by the CPP.”
Meanwhile, Parlade called Karapatan a terrorist front organization. He also challenged the organization to condemn the terrorist murder. His statement was shared on the Facebook page of the AFP Civil Relations Service.
Badoy also issued a statement against the organization on the issue of the renewal of the ABS-CBN franchise. In a Facebook post on May 12, he told Karapatan and other non-governmental organizations that “[keep] get out of this problem, lest we allow them to drag us into their trap and swallow the narrative they force us to swallow: tyranny. “
“This has to end. Instead of denigrating and endangering people for the legitimate exercise of their constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression, the government must take note and address legitimate criticisms of its policies, ”said Palabay.
“[R]Spontaneous public officials should be held criminally and administratively liable for the aforementioned acts that defame, denigrate and basely label me and KARAPATAN along with the practices of their officials and members, ”he added.
EDV
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