• Context: The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) submits cases of “spy-tagging” to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN-OHCHR) despite their bloody credibility on red-tagging and human rights violations
  
  
• Human rights: Civil and political rights, international humanitarian law
  
  
• Rights-holder: Public, human rights defenders, civil society
  
  
• Duty-bearer: Armed Forces of the Philippines, Administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., United Nations

MANILA – The term “spy-tagging” is a deflection tactic, according to Amnesty International Philippines, as it is being used by the NTF-ELCAC to shift the accusation of human rights violations to non-state actors.

The statement came after the NTF-ELCAC published a post, with a photo showing UN Senior Adviser for Human Rights Signe Poulsen receiving a document from an NTF-ELCAC representative. 

Cristina Palabay, secretary general of human rights group Karapatan, said that the recent post of the NTF-ELCAC is an act of “desperation for legitimacy when there is none at all.”

“International human rights mechanisms including UN Special Procedures, treaty bodies and the OHCHR itself have either questioned or called for the NTF-ELCAC’s abolition – a major indication that its existence is most unwanted,” Palabay said.

United Nations Special Rapporteurs Irene Khan and Ian Fry previously supported the call for the NTF-ELCAC’s abolition.

National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers President Ephraim Cortez said in a Facebook post that it was “misrepresented as proof of an alleged agreement for collaborative work.”

“Any collaborative work with a red-tagger like NTF-ELCAC will violate [UN] OHCHR’s very reason for existence. Its mandate is to promote and protect human rights by monitoring violations and assisting the government to strengthen its capacity to uphold international human rights standards,” Cortez said.

The UN OHCHR coordinates human rights activities throughout the United Nations System and acts as the secretariat of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. Its mandate includes assisting governments in fulfilling their human rights obligations, as well as providing assistance for the implementation of the international human rights laws.

Amnesty International Philippines reminded the NTF-ELCAC that under international law, the government is responsible for human rights violations committed, not only by its own state actors but also by non-state actors.

For the Commission on Human Rights, the two types of human rights violations are commission which refers to the violations perpetrated by state actors and omission which refers to the government’s failure to address violations committed by non-state actors.

“Government forces, led by NTF-ELCAC and recently DND Secretary Gilbert Teodoro, accuse communities of supporting rebel insurgency, a blatant practice of red-tagging which President Marcos, Jr. continues to condone,” said Ritz Lee Santos III, section director of Amnesty International Philippines, in a statement. He said that red-tagging has already resulted in deaths and destruction for the marginalized.

Under the Marcos Jr. administration, Karapatan documented 137 extrajudicial killings related to the government’s counterinsurgency program, 85 frustrated extrajudicial killings, 16 enforced disappearances, and 53 torture cases. There were hundreds more illegally arrested and searched.

Red-tagging has also been declared a threat to the right to life, liberty, and security, based on a Supreme Court decision in 2024. 

“Their failure to take reasonable steps to prevent or respond to abuses committed by non-state actors is in itself a human rights violation. But framing criticisms of the government as communist propaganda while publicly tagging activists as terrorists are equally violations of international human rights laws as well,” Amnesty International-Philippines said in a social media post. 

The group repeated the call to abolish the NTF-ELCAC as part of the human rights legislative agenda for the 20th Congress. In a press conference, Karapatan also called on the abolition of the task force for vilifying the victims of the April 19 massacre in Toboso, Negros Occidental and for continuously red-tagging individuals, organizations, and communities.

The UN OHCHR has yet to release a statement on this issue. (DAA)

Disclosure: Bulatlat rejects the use of “spy-tagging” as it is another term coined by the military and the NTF-ELCAC to evade accountability from human rights violations. The same applies to the use of “communist-terrorist groups (CTG)” which obscure the political objectives of the revolutionary groups and the “CTG-front organizations” which blurs the distinction between the civilians and combatants.