College editors’ alliance hits military for tagging youth leaders as NPA recruiters

MANILA, Philippines – The College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) denounced another incident of red-tagging by the military, thus threatening the security of the group’s national president and other youth leaders.

In a statement released on Wednesday, January 23, the CEGP said the military tagged its national president, Jose Mari Callueng, along with National Union of Students of the Philippines secretary-general Raoul Manuel and University of the Philippines student regent Ivy Taroma as recruiters for the New People’s Army.

A miitary official in Southern Tagalog even called Callueng’s mother to tell her about their allegation. 

CEGP, said to be the oldest alliance of tertiary student publications in the Asia-Pacific, said this was not the first incident of red-tagging done by the military to its members as part of a “persistent crackdown against progressive groups and individuals.”

It recalled how, in 2017, members of the campus press were listed under the watchlist of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and were subjected to tailing and surveillance by the Philippine National Police during the guild’s regionwide student press congress in Naga City.

CEGP also highlighted how “the proliferation of red-tagging among activists and progressive groups [has] been on the rise to seemingly counter the growing dissent of the people again.” 

In October 2018, the AFP claimed that the Communist Party of the Philippines tapped students from 10 universities in Metro Manila to take part in a plot to oust President Rodrigo Duterte. (WATCH: What students, faculty, alumni think about AFP’s red-tagging of schools)

The AFP later admitted that the list had yet to be verified and the schools were still subject to continuing validation. – Rappler.com