IN A strongly worded statement, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to end red-tagging in the country and comply with its international commitments and obligations to protect the rights of workers.
Bryony Lau, HRW’s deputy Asia director, stated that the Philippine government’s “sinister and at times deadly practice of ‘red-tagging’ has become a serious threat to labor rights in the country.”
“President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should direct officials to end this abusive practice and ensure that government authorities uphold the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively,” Lau said in a statement to the media on September 26, 2024.
“We’re also urging companies whose workers are being red-tagged to do the same and to ensure that their workers do not suffer from red-tagging and are protected from it,” added Carlos Conde, HRW’s senior researcher.
As cases of red-tagging surged in the Philippines, Conde mentioned that they would join other organizations in investigating red-tagging incidents in the country.
“Red-tagging in all forms is an issue that is very important to the United Nations. Various Philippine and international groups are definitely bringing these cases to the attention of various UN agencies and procedures,” Conde told SunStar Philippines in a separate interview.
The Ateneo Human Rights Center (AHRC), one of the first university-based institutions engaged in the promotion and protection of human rights in the country, reported that from January to June 2024, 456 red-tagging incidents were recorded under the Anti-Red-Tagging Monitoring Project as of August 8.
The AHRC report also showed that women are red-tagged three times more than men, with threats of sexual violence frequently reported, indicating a gender-based dimension to red-tagging.
Significant surges occurred in February (72 incidents) and April (135 incidents), linked to high-profile cases and political events, the report added.
Activist lawyer and multisectoral group leader Aaron Pedrosa maintained that workers need protection from unfair labor practices and wholesale violations of labor standards.
“Those who muster the courage to expose these conditions are red-tagged instead of being listened to. The Marcos Jr. administration must end the impunity by prosecuting violators of labor laws and rights and issuing an executive order against red-tagging. We call on the President to certify as urgent the Human Rights Defenders Bill pending in Congress to criminalize red-tagging and human rights violations,” Pedrosa told SunStar Philippines.
“In Marcos Jr.’s Bagong Pilipinas (New Philippines), labor leaders and activists will continue to be killed, harassed, and vilified unless the government intervenes. We remind the government that without workers, the assembly lines and establishments that produce goods and services will come to a grinding halt. It is therefore in our economic interest to safeguard the workers who generate the country’s wealth,” added Pedrosa, the secretary-general of Sanlakas.
In a report released by HRW entitled “Philippines: Dangerous ‘Red-Tagging’ of Labor Leaders,” it stated that the Marcos Jr. administration “has harassed and threatened union leaders and their members by accusing them of being combatants or supporters of the communist insurgency.”
“This practice, known as red-tagging, has led labor activists to withdraw from unions and for individual unions to end their affiliations with labor federations critical of the government,” the HRW report said.
HRW interviewed 14 union leaders and workers in the Southern Tagalog region, as well as labor rights advocates, documenting more than a dozen recent cases of harassment or threats by government officials or security forces.
“Successive Philippine governments have red-tagged leftist activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and labor activists. Several union leaders and members described heightened threats since 2022 against leaders of at least seven unions during collective bargaining,” the HRW report added.
In a separate statement, Jerome Adonis, the secretary-general of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), stated that “it is clear that the Philippine government is using red-tagging to prevent workers from organizing and unionizing.”
Over the years, many KMU leaders and activists have been targets of red-tagging, and the KMU reports that 72 union leaders and members have been killed since 2016, according to HRW.
On March 7, 2019, in an incident known as “Bloody Sunday,” police and the military raided union offices in three provinces and killed nine people.
Most of those killed had either been red-tagged or belonged to groups that had been red-tagged, HRW reported.
HRW recalled that in 2018, then-President Rodrigo Duterte created the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac), an agency alleged to be at the forefront of red-tagging.
While various human rights groups urged Marcos Jr. to disband the NTF-Elcac, the president maintained that he would not abolish it.
“What is the reason for abolishing Elcac? Because of red-tagging? But it is not the government that is red-tagging,” the President told reporters in May 2024.
HRW reported that in early 2023, a high-level International Labour Organization (ILO) mission to the country found that the Philippine government had done “very little” to stop or minimize violations of labor rights, including red-tagging and the killing of union leaders and members. (SunStar Philippines)
