The Justice secretary must have meant well beyond wanting to improve the country’s forensic pathology when he invited the United Nations special rapporteurs to our country during the recent UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.

That, for me, made his attendance in the said meeting fruitful. And it’s a welcome development.

My disbelief, however, is on his claim of red-tagging to be “a mere invention of the left.”

I found the statement to be skewed and fallacious. Will the word crook ever come from the corrupt to describe the corrupt? And will the word scoundrel emanate from plunderers and robbers to describe themselves?

“There is no such national policy of red-tagging” in the Philippines, Secretary Boying Remulla assured the officials of UNHRC. But may I ask: Is there a need for such a policy when authorities have been freely doing it, unchecked and uncensored?

I am out-and-out in support of the fight against insurrection of every kind because rebellion in any form is bad and evil.

I have no qualms about beating and ending the local communist insurgency.

But I have the strong compulsion and reasons to oppose red-tagging.

Looking at how authorities have been “pursuing” the local communists or so-called terrorists, red-tagging appears to be the way they unfairly and recklessly accuse just about everyone who thinks differently from the way they think.

Several red-tagged individuals have suffered violence, some even died.

For the country to go forward, the government must listen to dissenters who are not necessarily espousing the communist ideology.