COUNCILOR Faustino Olowan has summoned the Baguio City Police Office to shed light on allegations of youth leaders on harassment and red tagging on November 26.
Olowan, who acted on a complaint filed in the City Council during the citizens forum this week, supported allegations by student leaders Marben Palasigui, Charistian Dave Ruz and Deana Louise Montenegro who aired concerns on their safety against police harassment.
According to the trio, the BCPO has profiled and questioned them on activities conducted which involved freedom of speech and expression tagging them as terrorists and making public these allegations on the police social media page.
The students said these has endangered their lives as well as affected their reputation.
Olowan said summoning the BCPO will shed light into the matter and will remind the police not to harass people who express their opinion.
The councilor said Baguio City is considered a peace zone and should be kept that way despite the differences in opinions of its citizens.
Youth leaders have since filed nine complaints on October 22 at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Cordillera regional office following the malicious series of social media posts thru BSPO Kasanggamo Facebook account.
The posts tagged progressive youth organizations as "terrorists" and supposed recruiters of the AFP's narrative of the "Red October Plot."
On October 11, Kabataan Partylist Sarah Elago held a dialogue with the Commission on Human Rights National Chairperson Chito Gascon regarding the numerous reports of red-tagging all over the country.
As a result, a directive to all regional offices of CHR to conduct investigation is now in place said CHR regional director lawyer Romel Daguimol.