THE Police Regional Office-Cordillera (PRO-COR) belied allegations of red tagging against progressive groups in the region.
Police Brigadier General R’win Pagkalinawan, PRO-COR director, said no red tagging order exists.
“It is not a policy of the Philippine National Police to conduct alleged red tagging activities particularly here in the Cordillera Administrative Region, in fact, even the term red tagging did not emanate from the PNP but from the so-called left leaning groups headed by Joma Sison. It is why we are banking on the resolutions of municipalities identifying the so called CPP-NPA-NDF as person-non-grata due to their questionable activities in an area here in the region equipped with the appropriate sanctions to penalize anyone who will be talking about recruiting our youths to the left leaning cause,” Pagkalinawan said.
Some sectors in Baguio City recently called out members of the Baguio City Police Office (BCPO) for allegedly conducting red tagging activities on certain individuals and groups having affiliations with progressive groups.
“These progressive groups are fighting this and are asking law makers to pass a law criminalizing red tagging. How can this pass when it is not the PNP who identified such groups as members of the left leaning groups,” Pagkalinawan said.
Pagkalinawan cited the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), an independent federation of progressive people’s organizations, most of them grassroots-based organizations among indigenous communities in the Cordillera Region who is getting funding from Europe.
“CPA has a regular funding. I know that there is an effort by the national government pertaining to EO 70 for members of the indigenous peoples to really show the situation in the Cordillera and for these funding institutions in Europe to stop the funding the CPA,” Pagkaniwan added.