Karapatan condemns the incessant red-tagging of four Cordilleran activists by the Joint Task Unit (JTU) “Panagkaykaysa” under the 5th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army. The activists continue to be red-tagged despite the passage of a Baguio City ordinance prohibiting red-tagging and in spite of a Supreme Court ruling that states that red-tagging constitutes a threat to one’s life, liberty and security.
The latest red-tagging case against Cordilleran activists involved a four-minute video purportedly reporting on the “threat situation” in the region on February 18, 2025. Accused in the video as CPP-NPA personalities are Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA) leaders Jennifer Awingan, Windel Bolinget, Steve Tauli and Joanna Cariño, who is also a national council member at large of Karapatan. Also red-tagged in the video as “sectoral front organizations” were groups such as the CPA, Anakbayan-Cordillera and Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA), an affiliate of Karapatan.
Cordilleran leaders have long been in the crosshairs of the JTU. On March 24, 2024, Bolinget and Cariño’s names and pictures were included in a tarpaulin hung by the 102nd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army in Lacub, Abra containing a list of alleged members of the New People’s Army. In the same year, their names, photographs and addresses were included in a document likely authored by the military, identifying them as alleged members of the “ICRC Execom.”
On July 10, 2023, Bolinget, Awingan and Tauli were arbitrarily designated as “terrorists” by the Anti-Terror Council (ATC), along with another Cordilleran activist, Sarah Alikes. The activists have questioned the constitutionality of their unjust designation and the Anti-Terror Act itself, and are awaiting the court’s ruling.
The Baguio City Council has passed and signed a resolution urging the ATC to drop the “terrorist” designation against Bolinget, Awingan, Tauli and Alikes, attesting to their credibility, integrity and invaluable contributions to the community as activists and human rights defenders.
Aside from the arbitrary designation, trumped-up criminal charges have also been filed against these Cordilleran activists, underscoring the link between being red-tagged and becoming victims of more serious human rights violations.
Karapatan urges the Commission on Human Rights to investigate these red-tagging incidents in the Cordillera in light of its recently conducted nationwide inquiry on red-tagging. “With its unrelenting attacks against these Cordilleran activists, the JTU not openly mocks local ordinances and a landmark Supreme Court ruling against red-tagging,” said Karapatan deputy secretary general Maria Sol Taule, “it also goes against the rising current of public and international opinion condemning red-tagging. This arbitrary, malicious and dangerous practice must stop.”