Casiño, Bagares call out Trillanes for ‘red-tagging’

Former Bayan Muna representative and activist Teddy Casiño called out former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV for allegedly red-tagging family members of drug war victims who filed a communication with the International Criminal Court (ICC).

This was after Trillanes issued a statement saying he and former Magdalo representative Gary Alejano sought the intervention of the ICC on the Duterte administration's war on drugs ahead of the Communist Party of the Philippines, New People's Army, and National Democratic Front.

"It was the mothers and family members of the EJK victims of Duterte's drug war who filed with the ICC through the National Union of Peoples Lawyers (NUPL). Pls. don't red tag them," Casiño told Trillanes on Twitter on Thursday.

But Trillanes said he did not mention that the kin of the extrajudicial killings were part of the communist movement.

"I believe they are not communists. How sure are you that the CPP/NPA/NDF did not file any other communication with the ICC, are you in touch with them?" Trillanes said.

In response, Casiño said that as far as he knew, only Trillanes and the mothers of the EJK victims assisted by the NUPL, and some human rights groups sent communications to the ICC in line with the controversial anti-illegal drugs campaign of the government.

"You are the one alleging the CPP-NPA-NDF also did. Please don't shift the burden of proving this to me," the former congressman said.

"Well, based on my impeccable intel sources, nag-file ang CPP/NPA/NDF; but let me categorically state that the mothers of the EJK victims are not communists," Trillanes replied.

Trillanes also clarified that he did not brand lawyer Romel Bagares a communist after the latter said that he had been falsely identified as a lawyer for the CPP-NPA-NDF in the former's statement.

"If you want to credit-grab fine, but please don’t do it at the expense of the lives of other people @TrillanesSonny... You are irresponsible to do this to begin with, when people — lawyers, doctors, human rights workers— are being killed after being red-tagged," Bagares said on Twitter.

Bagares also corrected the former senator and clarified that he did not file a communication with the ICC. He said he worked as the lead counsel of the Philippine Coalition for the ICC, which questioned the Philippine withdrawal from the Rome Statute at the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the NUPL said that it did not matter who first sought the ICC's intervention in the drug war. Credit was not what was important but rather justice for victims of human rights violations.

NUPL chief Edre Olalia said he learned there were more than 50 communications against President Rodrigo Duterte but that he did not know whether the CPP-NPA-NDF were among those who made a filing.

The issue of red-tagging was recently discussed in Senate hearings where militant groups that are part of the Makabayan bloc denied links to the CPP, and underscored that the baseless accusations of the military were endangering lives of those who were practicing legitimate dissent.

The security sector, on the other hand, asserted that they are only "truth-tagging."

Just this week, red-tagged doctor Mary Rose Sancelan and her husband were killed in Negros Oriental.

Casiño, in a separate Tweet, lamented that red-tagging "spares no one."

"Dr. Sancelan was Guihulngan’s city health officer. She was a Covid-19 frontliner. Then her name appeared in a hit list of supposed CPP-NPA members," he said. — DVM, GMA News