“It appears that the NTF-ELCAC is using its powers to protect key economic interests in the country. This has nothing to do with anti-terrorism or anti-communism. The gross overreaction to people trying to defend their right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is totally unacceptable.”
Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said last week that he does not see any need to abolish the National Task Force to End the Local Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). He claimed that red-tagging does not come from the government but from “kung sino-sino” (other people). There is irony in Marcos’s statement. NTF-ELCAC, a task force created by virtue…
On May 3, Tarra’s parents were again approached by people claiming to be from NTF-ELCAC, including a so-called“supervisor. They showed photos of Tarra participating in various activities and insisted on personally speaking to Tarra out of fear that he might “go to the mountains.” They said that on their next visit, they would like to speak to his parents again with forms and documents for them to sign.
“The Philippine government will become a laughing stock in the international community if it does not heed SR Khan’s findings.”
“These people are innocent civilians being tagged by the NTF-ELCAC as NPAs. Out of their desperation, they are using the civilians for their report on the counter-insurgency program.”
For workers in Southern Tagalog, repression is as normal as resistance.
The struggle for their right to housing taught them that they have bigger fights to win.
This was the top-of-mind step that Ian Fry, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change, urged the Philippine government to take as he wound up a 10-day official visit in the country last Wednesday.
Rights groups said UN Special Rapporteur Ian Fry’s visit to the country “puts on center stage the sinister role played by the NTF-ELCAC and the dangerous impact of the terror law on the lives and safety of environmental human rights defenders in the country.”
“I call on the Philippine government to respect this right and establish a truth reconciliation process to investigate the unlawful killings by the military, hold those accountable for these killings and provide reparations for those who suffered.”
Amid all these, Karapatan said their group and the rest of the human rights community will not stop in its efforts to expose and oppose the brutal extrajudicial killings and the threats and red-tagging that increasingly target not only activists and other human rights defenders but ordinary civilians.