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NUPL president: Parlade red-tagging ‘orchestrated’
By NICOLE-ANNE C. LAGRIMAS,GMA NewsMilitary official Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade Jr.'s "frenzied fetish" of red-tagging is orchestrated, a human rights lawyer said Friday.
National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL) president Edre Olalia made the statement after Parlade warned actress Liza Soberano against supporting Gabriela Women's Party, which he claimed is a front organization of communist rebels.
"Without a shadow of a doubt, all these are obviously orchestrated. They have been relentlessly and viciously, let alone recklessly, laying the political justification for a continuing and more atrocious legal blitzkrieg and social bullying," Olalia said.
He said the targets of the "wimpy bashing" are not so much armed rebels but activists, the opposition, and "concerned celebrities or anybody who speaks out against injustice in the country or who refuse to be echo chambers of the present government."
"From tarps to trumped-up charges, from posts to posters, from threats to taunts -- all these have the fingerprints and signatures of anachronistic big-mouthed Goebbels," he said.
Parlade, Southern Luzon Command chief and spokesman of the government's anti-insurgency task force, warned
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The general said Soberano and other celebrities should be educated on the "hidden violent agenda" of Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (MAKIBAKA), which he said was an underground group hiding under Gabriela.
Soberano's lawyer denounced the "red-tagging" and said the actress remains apolitical.
Parlade denied he red-tagged Soberano but said she is being "exploited" by Gabriela.
NUPL lawyers themselves have complained of red-tagging. Last year, they sought court protection from alleged attacks by state forces. The Court of Appeals denied their petition and they have elevated their case to the Supreme Court.
Progressive groups have long objected to accusations that they are communist rebels or fronts. They say red-tagging has placed their members' lives in danger. Many red-tagged activists have been killed, most recently Randall Echanis in Quezon City and Zara Alvarez in Bacolod.—LDF, GMA News