The Hidden Cost of the Anti-Red-tagging Act: De Facto Support for the CPP-NPA-NDFP

Calling for an “Anti-Red-Tagging Act” is often framed as a moral imperative, a supposed triumph of human rights over abuse. It sounds noble, but only if one deliberately strips the proposal of historical context and ignores the hard lessons paid for in blood. What is routinely dismissed as “red-tagging” is, in many cases, the lawful identification of organizations and individuals whose links to armed rebellion have already been established through intelligence reports, testimonies of former rebels, and judicial records. This is not dissent. This is not criticism of government. It is security assessment grounded on evidence.

Proponents of the bill frequently argue that rampant red-tagging violates the constitutional mandate to protect life, liberty, and property. This framing is not only misleading but dangerously incomplete. The Constitution protects individuals from unlawful state action, not from legitimate, evidence-based identification of threats. What truly endangers life, liberty, and property is armed insurgency itself. It is insurgency that kills soldiers and civilians, recruits minors, terrorizes Indigenous Peoples, and destabilizes entire communities long before any label is ever uttered.

If an Anti-Red-Tagging Act were to be implemented, a fundamental question demands an answer. Paano ang mga biktima ng CPP-NPA? Who speaks for those killed in armed encounters, the civilians caught in crossfire, the youth recruited through deception, and the Indigenous communities groomed and coerced into submission through fear? A law that creates protective buffers for alleged front organizations while rendering these victims legally peripheral is not humane. It is selective compassion, and justice cannot survive selectivity.

Rather than pushing for legislation that risks shielding insurgent networks from scrutiny, the State should focus on education and prevention. The public across all sectors must be informed about CPP-NPA recruitment strategies. Students, workers, Indigenous communities, religious groups, and civil society organizations need to understand how legal spaces are infiltrated, how narratives are manipulated, and how legitimate grievances are weaponized to sustain armed rebellion. Prevention through education aligns far more closely with constitutional values than criminalizing identification.

Accountability, meanwhile, does not require new sweeping laws. It requires discipline and enforcement. Government security forces must strictly observe established rules of engagement, due process, and communication protocols. Allegations of abuse must be investigated thoroughly and penalized under existing laws. Our legal system already provides remedies against false accusations and unlawful acts. There is no vacuum that justifies a broad statute that risks paralyzing security operations.

To legislate against red-tagging without a clear and workable distinction between legitimate dissent and covert support for armed insurgency is not human rights protection. It is strategic blindness. In practice, such a law functions as indirect support for the CPP-NPA by discouraging intelligence work, chilling public discourse on insurgency, and silencing former rebels who expose how recruitment, indoctrination, and front operations truly operate.

From a constitutional standpoint, the State’s duty to defend itself and its people is non-negotiable. Any law that weakens the ability of security forces to identify threats, protect communities, and prevent recruitment undermines that duty. Free speech is protected, but it is not absolute. It does not extend to activities that materially support an armed movement seeking to overthrow the State through violence.

Human rights must protect civilians first. Peace is not achieved by legislating denial or sanitizing armed rebellion. It is achieved through truth, public education, accountability within the bounds of existing law, and the moral courage to confront insurgency as it actually exists, not as it is rhetorically repackaged for political convenience.