ACT solon slams NTF-Elcac for ‘red-tagging’ lectures in schools

ACT Teachers Rep. France Castro. (FILE PHOTO)

MANILA, Philippines — A party-list lawmaker on Thursday slammed the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) for its orientation lectures in schools, alleging these “condition the minds of the youth” to believe that dissent and criticisms of the government are unlawful.

Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT Teachers) Rep. France Castro claimed students in grades 11 and 12 were “forced” to attend an orientation for the NTF-Elcac at the Philippine Science High School in the Cordillera Administrative Region (PSHS-CAR).

“Red-tagging, harassment, and threats have no place in schools. The NTF-Elcac orientation on the so-called ‘Communist Terrorist Group Youth’ contains vilification, red-tagging, and terror tagging of progressive individuals and organizations targeting students, teachers, and education support personnel,” she said in a statement.

According to Castro, the NTF-Elcac lectures in schools “are attempts to condition the minds of the youth into thinking that activities protected by free speech such as voicing dissent and critiques to the anti-people policies of the government are wrong and illegal, discouraging them from practicing critical thinking.”

She then sought to disallow interrupting the classes of students to attend such orientations.

“Sa panahon na matindi pa rin ang education crisis sa bansa at maraming kailangan ayusin at habulin sa curriculum ng ating mga kabataan, hindi dapat sinisingit pa ang ganitong mga orientation na wala namang ibang objective [kung hindi] ang magturo paano mang-bully ng kapwa Pilipino, paano mandahas at paano ituring na kalaban ang mga mamamayang ginagamit lamang kanilang mga karapatang pantao,” Castro added.

(These orientations with no other objective but to teach about bullying fellow Filipinos and using force to vilify those who are merely practicing their human rights should not be done, especially when there is still a severe education crisis in the country and a lot to fix and make up for in the curriculum of our youth.)

The lawmaker who belongs to the House’s Makabayan bloc also cited several orders issued by the Department of Education (DepEd), which declares schools as zones of peace which, Castro noted, means “police and military are not allowed to enter the premises of the schools.”

READ: Hands off our teachers, ACT tells PNP

“The NTF-Elcac has accused educators of brainwashing the youth many times and has tagged them as terrorists for simply doing their job to encourage curiosity, furthering human knowledge using critical thinking, and passing on learnings from history with the benefit of context, hindsight and guided analysis,” she said.

“Who now sounds like teaching, and which one sounds like brainwashing? Who are they to lecture in schools and ‘teach’ the children what is wrong and who is ‘bad’ when all they have done is kill thousands of innocent lives and violate the basic human rights of those they are supposed to serve and protect?”

She went on to call for an end to the orientation lectures in educational institutions, urging schools administrators “to stand for the rights of their students and teachers by ensuring that schools are not launching pads for the military and military objectives.”

The League of Filipino Students earlier had expressed alarm about the NTF-Elcac visit at the PSHS-CAR.

“Pinapanawagan namin sa lahat ng mga kabataan at estudyante sa lahat ng mga paaralan sa buong bansa na i-boycott ang ganitong mga programa ng NTF-Elcac [at] manindigan para sa karapatan nating ihayag ang ating boses,” the organization said in a statement.

(We are calling on all the youth and students in schools across the country to boycott these NTF-Elcac programs and take a stand for our right to use our voices freely.)

🚨 ALERT🚨

RED-TAGGING ORIENTATION, IKAKASA NG NATIONAL TASK FORCE TO END LOCAL COMMUNIST ARMED CONFLICT (NTF-ELCAC) SA PISAY CORDILLERA #StopTheAttack#AbolishNTFELCAC pic.twitter.com/AELtl9PzId

— League of Filipino Students (@LFSPhilippines) January 18, 2023

Created in 2018 by Executive Order 70, signed by then-president Rodrigo Duterte, the NTF-Elcac had received flak for its controversial red-tagging of personalities who are critical of the government.

READ: NTF-Elcac spox to Guevarra: No danger to life in red-tagging

INQUIRER.net has messaged the NTF-Elcac and DepEd for a comment, but they have yet to respond.

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