Badoy's red-tagging 'encourages harassment' of volunteers — Angat Buhay
MANILA, Philippines — Officials of Angat Buhay, the non-profit organization launched by former vice president Leni Robredo, pushed back Friday after claims by the red-tagging spokesperson Lorraine Badoy that the NGO was recruiting youth to the Communist Party of the Philippines.
This comes after National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict spokesperson Lorraine Badoy claimed over Sonshine Media Network International's "Laban Kasama ang Bayan" program that insurgents had infiltrated the former vice president's NGO.
"Her claims are utterly baseless and completely false, and worse, encourage the harassment of our staff members, volunteers, and partners," Angat Pinas Inc. executive director Raffy Magno said in a statement.
"As soon as our attention was called to the matter, we referred the same to our lawyers who are now in the process of preparing possible legal actions to protect the integrity of our organization and our work and, more so, to protect our volunteers and partners."
Badoy is facing at least three administrative complaints before the Office of the Ombudsman for her baseless red-tagging, one of which was also of Robredo and her campaign for the presidency.
The spokesperson of the government's anti-insurgency task force has not offered any proof for her assertion that the former vice president is linked to communist rebels besides Robredo's support of groups belonging to the left side of the political spectrum and her willingness to resume peace talks with rebel groups.
"They really are working overtime in their recruitment, the Angat Buhay of Leni Robredo...the people behind the Angat Buhay is CPP-NPA-NDF," Badoy said in mixed Filipino and English over SMNI's program.
"In fact, they're on social media, the mothers looking for the children who they can't find anymore, and these are the ones who joined Leni Youth."
Badoy has denied that her task force practices red-tagging, preferring to call its conflating activists with armed combatants "truth-tagging." But the controversial NTF-ELCAC has often been caught spreading false information on more than one occasion to justify its red-tagging.
Magno said that the NGO would continue its work as a private, non-government organization to empower marginalized communities and sectors.
"We are not taking this sitting down. We will not allow these efforts to sabotage our work to prosper. The time to stand up to fake news and hold its purveyors to account is now," he also said.
"Our work is beyond personalities and politics. Our work is about fundamental values. Our work is about leaving no one behind."
— Franco Luna with a report from Xave Gregorio
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