Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Thursday that he supports a proposed bill criminalizing “red-tagging,” adding the recent incidents were already “quite disturbing.”
“In the past few months, medyo sunod-sunod ang reklamo about red-tagging and people have raised their voice against it, so might as well have one because the frequency of this act loosely called ‘red-tagging’ has become quite disturbing,” Guevarra said in an ANC interview.
Currently, Guevarra said there is no law that would punish exactly the acts considered as red-tagging but there are relevant criminal charges that can be filed against those who red-tag other people.
“Maybe the best could be done is to file complaints which are somehow related but not directly fitting to the act being complained of,” Guevarra said.
The Justice secretary said libel, defamation, threat, and coercion are some of the relevant charges that could be filed against people who are “red-tagging.”
As of now, there are no cases filed against the National Task Force To End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) spokesperson Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade, who was accused of red-tagging community pantry organizers.
Guevarra says red-tagging incidents ‘disturbing’
“As far as the DOJ is concerned, wala pa kaming natatanggap na (we have not received) any complaint for red-tagging against any person, particularly against General Parlade,” he said.
In December 2020, Senate President Vicente Sotto III said President Rodrigo Duterte “laughed” at the idea of criminalizing red-tagging.
This was after some senators raised the idea of making red-tagging a crime in a Senate hearing.
“I told the president last night of the idea of some to criminalize red-tagging, he laughed!” Sotto told reporters in a text message.
“Napakalabo! It’s like criminalizing name-calling. Paano ‘yung sinasabihan ng fascist? Narcissist? Hindi bawal? ‘Yun yellow? Bawal din?” he said.
(It’s crazy! It’s like criminalizing name-calling. What about those called fascist? Narcissist? Is that not allowed? What about those called yellow? Should that be disallowed too?)
“Maybe the reason for this is wala pang (the is no law) right now against red-tagging,” he added.