AFP making baseless accusations vs. UP graduates —Diliman chancellor

The chancellor of the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman on Sunday decried the “baseless” red-tagging of several alumni by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

UP Diliman Chancellor Fidel Nemenzo said the AFP’s list of “UP Students who became NPA (Dead or Captured),” which was posted then deleted on the AFP Information Exchange Facebook page, named several esteemed professionals.

“It is unthinkable that despite the millions of taxpayers’ money poured into military intelligence, the AFP is making such baseless accusations, in the process violating the civil liberties and putting at risk the lives of responsible citizens who are actively contributing to nation-building in their chosen professions,” he said in a statement.

Nemenzo added that “the damage has been done” despite the deletion of the error-laden list.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana earlier said the AFP would apologize to lawyer Rafael Aquino, who was among those erroneously tagged as a member of the New People’s Army. 

Nemenzo also expressed alarm at the possibility that the AFP “may be harboring a database of a much longer list of UP students across many years, wrongly and similarly accused as NPA.”

“We are worried that a military database that is riddled with factual errors may unduly become the basis for overt and covert military action against our students and alumni across four decades or more,” he said.

The red-tagging followed the Department of National Defense (DND)’s unilateral abrogation of a 31-year-old pact with UP that prevents state forces from freely entering the campus without prior coordination. 

The DND claimed that UP campuses were being used as venues for the “clandestine recruitment” of students into the armed rebellion.

The spokesman of the government’s anti-communist task force also claimed recruitment was taking place in several other schools. 

From 18, the number of universities and colleges suspected by the military as venues for alleged recruitment to the New People's Army has increased to 38.

Four of the universities named objected to their “irresponsible” inclusion in the list.

The official, Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade Jr., made the same claims against the universities in 2018.

Around P4.5 billion was allocated to the intelligence and confidential funds of the Office of the President in the 2021 national budget.  — BM/KG, GMA News