DOJ backs enactment of law criminalizing red-tagging

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Tuesday supported moves by some lawmakers to push for the passage of a law that would declare Red-tagging as a criminal offense.

“[Criminalizing Red-tagging] may help reduce the problem of reckless endangerment [of state forces]. It’s really something for Congress to ponder on,” Guevarra told the Inquirer.

“It would be best … that Congress enact a law clearly defining and expressly penalizing what is loosely called today as ‘Red-tagging,’” he added.

Under the present laws, the justice secretary said individuals who have been Red-tagged, or accused of being members of the Communist Party of the Philippines without legal basis, may only lodge cases for harassment, defamation, coercion, unjust vexation and violation privacy laws against those making the allegations.

“If Congress is minded to criminalize Red-tagging, it should enact the appropriate legislation,” he stressed.

Last month, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon filed Senate Bill No. 2121, or the Act Defining and Penalizing Red-Tagging, to “fix the legal gaps, address impunity [and)]institutionalize a system of accountability.”

Drilon’s proposed legislation defined Red-tagging as the act of “labeling, vilifying, branding, naming, accusing, harassing, persecuting, stereotyping, or caricaturing individuals, groups, or organizations as state enemies, left-leaning, subversives, communists or terrorists.” INQ