Rights group KARAPATAN called on the Commission on Elections and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to immediately investigate reports of red-tagging of candidates, campaigners and the electorate and military operations in communities, as the first day of the campaign period for the 2025 midterm elections commenced yesterday, February 11.
“The election campaign period should be an opportunity for candidates to address people’s issues,” said KARAPATAN secretary general Cristina Palabay. “With the people’s right to vote is their right to know the platform and agenda of candidates and how they stand on various issues. Red-tagging and military operations in communities are dangerous schemes which violate the people’s basic right to suffrage and political participation.”
Palabay also stressed that red-tagging and military operations during elections pose grave threats to candidates, their supporters and the general voting population, as these can serve as precursors of election-related violence.
“Red-taggers from the military, police and other State forces, not to mention the notorious National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), have been working double time to malign the candidates with known records of activism, defending human rights and opposing anti-people policies. As in the previous elections, they have threatened, coerced, and even arrested and tortured supporters of progressive partylist groups and opposition candidates,” said Palabay, “We urge the COMELEC and the CHR to monitor and reprimand State forces interfering with election campaign activities.”
The COMELEC said in November 2024 that it will release guidelines against redtagging. As of yesterday, no such guidelines are posted on the COMELEC website. Meanwhile, the CHR recently concluded its inquiry on red-tagging, where it heard testimonies of victims from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
Palabay said that KARAPATAN will continue to monitor and condemn cases of red-tagging and attacks of the military and the NTF-ELCAC especially in far-flung rural communities, saying that it has already received reports on the existence of posters and tarpaulins red-tagging the senatorial candidates of the Makabayan coalition in Tarlac and Pampanga.
“We urge the public to report red-tagging incidents as well as military operations which result in threats to community members’ lives, liberty and security,” said Palabay. “Our right to vote, participate in the electoral process and freedom to express our views should never be curtailed.” She added: “We need to elect candidates who will unflinchingly assert the people’s rights and welfare in the face of high prices, low wages, widespread poverty, unbridled corruption in high places and rising repression.”