Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon has filed a bill that seeks to criminalize red-tagging activities and making it punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Drilon said Senate Bill No. 2121 or the proposed "Act Defining and Penalizing Red-Tagging", which he filed on Wednesday, March 24, primarily seeks to criminalize red-tagging and provide for penalties as deterrence "in order to fix the legal gaps, address impunity and institutionalize a system of accountability" in the Philippines.
Aside from making the act of red-tagging punishable by imprisonment of up to 10 years, the bill also seeks to disqualify persons convicted of red-tagging from holding public office.
SB 2121 defines the crime of "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 as part of a counter-insurgency or anti-terrorism strategy or program by any state actor, such as law enforcement agent, paramilitary or military personnel.
Any person who would be found guilty of red-tagging shall be imprisoned for 10 years and shall suffer the accessory penalty of perpetual absolute disqualification to hold public office, the bill stated.
"The passage of this bill will reverse the increasingly institutionalization and normalization of human rights violations’ and put a stop on the attacks against the members of the legal profession,” Drilon said in the bill’s explanatory note.
He explained that libel, or grave threats, "is not appropriate where a state agent denigrates a person as an enemy of the state, thereby, impinging on the rights of that individual."
“It has resulted in serious human rights violations such as harassments, arbitrary arrests, detentions and enforced disappearances,” Drilon said
“In some instances, being red-tagged is a prelude to death,” he stressed.
The bill, he said, seeks to fix the legal gaps, address impunity and institutionalize a system of accountability by criminalizing red-tagging and providing for penalties as deterrence.
"The measure, will likewise, serve as a reminder to the government of its primary duty under the Constitution to serve and protect the people,” Drilon further said.