By Francis Allan L. Angelo

On the occasion of its 39th Founding Anniversary, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) released a landmark report exposing the persistence of red-tagging as a systematic human rights violation in the Philippines — one that silences dissent, endangers lives, and corrodes the democratic space that activists, journalists, lawyers, and ordinary citizens depend on.

The findings come from the 2025 National Inquiry on the Current Situation of Human Rights Defenders in the Philippines with a Focus on Incidents of Red-Tagging, a wide-ranging investigation that drew testimonies from across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The CHR’s message on its anniversary was unambiguous: red-tagging is not a harmless label. It kills.

WHAT IS RED-TAGGING?

Red-tagging — the practice of publicly branding individuals or organizations as communists, terrorists, subversives, or enemies of the state without legal basis or due process — has roots in the Philippine government’s decades-long counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism campaigns.

The CHR traces the term’s origins to “red-baiting,” which first appeared in Philippine jurisprudence through a dissenting opinion by Senior Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen in Zarate v. Aquino III. Over time, “baiting” gave way to “tagging” — a word that more accurately captures the range of acts involved. Despite resistance from some state actors who prefer alternatives like “truth-tagging” or “terrorist-tagging,” the term “red-tagging” has been formally recognized by multiple branches of the Philippine government and by international bodies, including the United Nations.

The practice typically involves malicious or unfounded statements imputing a person’s participation in criminal activity or armed conflict. These are disseminated through newspapers, radio, television, posters, streamers, social media platforms like Facebook and X, and YouTube videos — as well as in public fora, press conferences, and even official government presentations. The content varies in form but is consistent in substance: targets are linked to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), its armed wing the New People’s Army (NPA), and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF) — often without evidence, investigation, or any opportunity to respond.

The 2025 Inquiry builds on a 2019 CHR national inquiry that first documented red-tagging as a systemic threat to human rights defenders, noting that “almost all of the progressive organizations that participated in the Inquiry…have testified to having experienced red-tagging.” That earlier report, alongside a 2007 United Nations Human Rights Council report by then-Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, had warned that military officers were linking individuals to armed groups without transparency or basis.

Nothing, the 2025 Inquiry found, has fundamentally changed.

WHO GETS RED-TAGGED?

The scope of victimization documented by the CHR is sweeping. Nearly every sector of Philippine civil society has been touched.

Labor leaders and trade unionists are red-tagged for their involvement in workers’ rights movements. Farmers and peasant organizers are targeted for advocating land reform. Indigenous Peoples — especially those opposing mining operations or so-called development projects on their ancestral lands — face recurrent labeling. Students and youth leaders have been branded for expressing their opinions on issues affecting children and the young. Teachers and academics have been accused of recruiting for insurgent groups for holding critical views on politics and culture.

Religious leaders and church workers engaged in social justice missions have not been spared. Community organizers seeking basic services and reforms face vilification. Journalists and media practitioners — particularly those whose coverage is seen as critical of government — have been explicitly targeted, a fact the CHR flags as a direct attack on press freedom and media safety. Lawyers defending political detainees and marginalized communities have been accused of supporting insurgency. Even judges who decide cases on their merits — acquitting activists or dismissing cases against government critics — have been publicly vilified.

The CHR also notes that red-tagging has extended beyond the UN definition of human rights defenders to ordinary individuals and communities accused, without proof, of supporting or sheltering those engaged in terrorism or insurgency.

A CATALOG OF HARM

Red-tagging is not merely a reputational injury. The 2025 Inquiry documented a hierarchy of harms that flow from the practice — and at the apex sits the threat to life itself.

Threats to Life, Liberty, and Security

The testimonies gathered during the inquiry are harrowing. Several human rights defenders subjected to red-tagging were subsequently subjected to enforced disappearances, assassination attempts, or outright killings. These are not outliers; they form a documented pattern.

Resource persons described finding their names and photographs on tarpaulins and posters branding them as terrorists and NPA recruiters. They were publicly identified at press conferences held by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). The effect, one witness described, was “mental torture” — a fear that radiates outward, isolating activists from their communities, their families, and their work.

More alarming still: some individuals were deceived into signing documents or tarpaulins falsely admitting NPA membership, then publicly paraded as “returnees” or “surrenderees.” Others faced fabricated criminal charges — terrorism, kidnapping, frustrated murder — filed by state agents following their red-tagging. Evidence was planted. Arrests were made.

State-sanctioned surveillance — routine home visits by soldiers and security forces, the questioning of family members, and the monitoring of movements — served as both a prelude and an enforcement mechanism for red-tagging. The CHR found that this surveillance was often applied to individuals with no legitimate legal justification.

Chilling Effect

Red-tagging creates what legal experts call a “chilling effect” — the suppression of speech, not through direct prohibition, but through the fear of consequences. By branding individuals as terrorists, the practice discourages public engagement, restricts democratic discourse, and silences dissent.

The CHR documented instances in which civil society organizations were prevented from distributing information, education, and campaign (IEC) materials — flyers, pamphlets, and advocacy literature — after being red-tagged. These materials, the CHR notes, are not propaganda; they are educational tools that enable communities to understand their rights, participate in governance, and hold power accountable. Suppressing them “contributes to a misinformed or uninformed populace, fosters a culture of fear, and weakens the role of civil society in democratic discourse.”

The impact on freedom of association is equally corrosive. Knowing that membership in certain organizations could invite red-tagging — and the violence that may follow — individuals opt not to join, disengage from advocacy, or leave legitimate groups. Recruitment drops. Participation weakens. In April 2023, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. formally acknowledged red-tagging as a threat to workers’ freedom of association through Executive Order No. 23. Even the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) explicitly linked red-tagging to “unnecessary arrests, detentions, and even fatalities of labor advocates.” Yet, as the CHR notes, the incidents continued.

Weaponizing the Law

One of the most troubling findings of the 2025 Inquiry is the systematic use of the legal system itself as an instrument of persecution. The CHR identified a pattern it describes as “legal weaponization”: the use of anti-terrorism laws to justify punitive pre-trial detention, asset seizure, and the informal rationalization of formal legal actions against red-tagged individuals.

This includes the fabrication of criminal charges, the planting of evidence, the abuse of search warrants, and the recycling of allegations — the same charges refiled repeatedly to exhaust and bankrupt targets. It is a “comprehensive framework of legal persecution,” the CHR concluded, designed not to secure justice but to punish dissent.

The Legal Gap

Perhaps the most damaging structural finding of the 2025 Inquiry is this: despite the well-documented harm caused by red-tagging, there is no Philippine law that defines it, prohibits it, or punishes it as a standalone offense.

The current legal landscape offers only a patchwork of remedies. Victims may file complaints for libel, slander, or cyber libel. They may seek writs of habeas corpus, amparo, or habeas data. They may file administrative charges against public officials under the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials (R.A. 6713). They may pursue civil damages under the Civil Code. They may even seek relief through their Local Government Units.

None of these, the CHR found, adequately address the full scope of red-tagging. The writ of amparo covers threats to life, liberty, and security — but red-tagging’s harms are broader and more diffuse. Cyber libel requires identifying a perpetrator, which is nearly impossible when red-tagging is conducted through anonymous or pseudonymous social media accounts. Administrative charges require functioning institutional mechanisms that, in practice, too often fail to act.

The Senate Committee on National Defense and Security had previously declared that existing remedies were sufficient. The 2025 Inquiry flatly rejects that conclusion. “No law or jurisprudence expressly defines ‘red-tagging’ or criminalizes it as a standalone offense,” the report states. “The absence of a specific prohibition, combined with procedural and institutional barriers, allows the practice to persist with limited accountability.”

The result is impunity. Perpetrators operate in the reasonable expectation that they will not be identified, investigated, or prosecuted.

A Framework for Legislation

The CHR does not merely document the problem — it proposes a solution, offering definitional elements to guide lawmakers in crafting a law against red-tagging.

Under the CHR’s proposed framework, red-tagging occurs when, without due process of law, a person, group, or organization is accused of involvement in terrorism, armed rebellion, or violent uprising and is labeled as: a “subversive,” an “insurgent,” an “enemy of the state,” a member or supporter of a non-state armed group, a “communist” or adherent to any ideology other than popular democracy, or anyone affiliated with the above.

Additionally: the target must have been singled out because of their advocacy, opinion, or exercise of the right to defend rights; the act must have been carried out by a public officer or with state authorization, support, or acquiescence; it must have been published or disseminated through any means, traditional or digital; and it must engender a well-founded belief that harm may result — reputational, physical, psychological, economic, structural, or institutional.

The CHR further proposes that harm be presumed once these elements are established, placing the burden on perpetrators rather than victims, and that penalties be staggered according to the gravity of the resulting human rights violations.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The CHR’s report is addressed to all three branches of government — and its demands are specific.

Executive Department

The CHR calls on the President to adopt a comprehensive policy prohibiting red-tagging that goes beyond the limited scope of Executive Order No. 97 (2025), which addressed red-tagging only in the context of workers’ rights. The prohibition must apply to all individuals and groups, without discrimination, in the exercise of any of their rights.

The Commission also calls for a review and strengthening of existing mechanisms, including Administrative Order No. 35 (which created the inter-agency committee on extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances), Administrative Order No. 1 (protecting journalists), and Executive Order No. 23 (protecting freedom of association). These structures, while well-intentioned, have failed to promptly address red-tagging and its consequences.

Significantly, the CHR calls for an independent review of Executive Order No. 70 — the government’s overarching counter-insurgency program, implemented by the NTF-ELCAC — to ensure accountability for documented infractions and to address the adverse human rights impacts of arbitrary or excessive actions taken in its name.

Undergirding all of this must be a human rights-based approach to countering terrorism and insurgency — one that addresses root causes through socio-economic reform, good governance, and social justice rather than through surveillance and vilification.

Legislative Department

The CHR calls for the passage of a law penalizing red-tagging — either as a standalone statute or as part of comprehensive legislation protecting human rights defenders. Multiple bills are currently pending in Congress.

In the House of Representatives, at least three bills directly addressing red-tagging are under consideration: House Bill No. 1841 filed by Rep. Leila M. De Lima; HB No. 213 filed by Reps. Renee Louise M. Co and Antonio L. Tinio; and HB No. 6680 filed by Rep. Sarah Jane I. Elago. Additionally, six House bills address the protection of human rights defenders more broadly.

In the Senate, Senate Bill No. 1071 — the Anti-Red Tagging Bill filed by Senator Jinggoy Ejercito Estrada — would impose imprisonment of up to 10 years and perpetual disqualification from public office on offenders.

The CHR also calls for a review of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012, both of which, resource persons testified, have been used as instruments of harassment against red-tagged individuals.

Finally, the CHR urges the Legislature to pass the CHR Charter Bill, which would strengthen the Commission’s investigative and protective powers, grant it the ability to recommend remedies for victims, and provide legal measures and provisional remedies for individuals facing rights violations.

Judicial Department

The CHR asks the Supreme Court to revisit the rules on special protective writs — habeas corpus, amparo, and habeas data — to ensure their scope evolves with the nature of modern rights violations. The Court’s recognition in Deduro v. Vinoya of the evolving damages inflicted by red-baiting suggests it is already aware of the issue.

The Commission also calls on the Supreme Court to promote proactive legal assistance to human rights defenders, particularly the marginalized and vulnerable, through the recently adopted Rules on Unified Legal Aid Service (ULAS) — a digital platform the CHR co-launched with the Supreme Court to connect Filipinos in need with pro bono legal support.