CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY–The Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) said the funeral wreaths sent to the Northern Mindanao office of ABS-CBN were meant to silence the mounting protests launched by ABS-CBN’s employees and supporters against the media company’s sudden closure.
Lawyer Czarina Musni, UPLM secretary-general, said the wreaths were sent to the ABS-CBN regional office here on Saturday right after a successful motorcade and noise barrage at the Press Freedom Park, where a number of rights advocates came to support the call for the resumption of the TV network’s operation.
“We see (it) as a warning to ABS-CBN to dissociate itself from progressive groups who have been campaigning for the renewal of its franchise, as it exposed the hand of Malacañang behind (the TV network’s) closure,” Musni said.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the desperate attempt of state forces to silence the ABS-CBN workers and their supporters,” she added in a statement.
Musni also said the military and the police had been linked to the previous incident of red-tagging of journalists.
UPLM cited a post on Facebook by the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Malaybalay City that tagged supporters of ABS-CBN protest as “terrorists”.
“These revelations only buttress the fact that these incidents of red-tagging are committed by no less than the State itself,” said Musni in a statement e-mailed to Inquirer.
“Previous incidents of red-tagging of journalists have been traced to originate from the AFP and the PNP,” Musni said, citing the case of Pamela Orais, the NUJP chair of Cagayan de Oro chapter, who was tagged in February this year.
“Similarly, a recent FB post featuring supporters of ABS-CBN and tagging them as ‘terrorists’ was made by Philippine National Police (PNP) in Malaybalay City,” Musni said.
“This futile act makes it even clear that these threats and harassments are part of the workings of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) by associating progressive forces with the CPP-NPA,” she said.
But she said their group would continue to support ABS-CBN workers as they questioned the network’s sudden shutdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We believe that 11,000 workers of ABS-CBN will continue to question their unjust dismissal and (the) closure (of the company) and we will be right there with them all the way until the truth comes out and the press shall finally be free,” Musni said.