TWENTY-FOUR officers and activists belonging to the Cordillera People’s Alliance yesterday asked the Supreme Court to reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals junking their plea for a writ of amparo against the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and other law enforcement agencies engaged in red-tagging.
The petitioners, led by Windel Bolingit, Stephen Tauli and Joanna Carino, also reiterated their call for the High Court to issue a temporary restraining order to stop the NTF-ELCAC, Armed Force, PNP, National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, and the Department of Interior and Local Government-Cordillera Administrative Region from linking the CPA and their names with the communist-led New People’s Army in their social media posts and other forms of publication.
They also asked the SC to compel the respondents to take down all existing social media posts and other forms of publicity which tag the CPA and its officers and members as communist terrorists.
“While petitioners are no strangers to threats from state forces owing to their political beliefs, the threatening acts significantly heightened during the period of the government-imposed community lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the 111-page petition for review on certiorari said.
Aside from what they said was the “relentless red-tagging and vilification by “state forces” and unknown entities in public places and social media posts, the petitioners also cited the issuance of Regional Law Enforcement Coordinating Committee Resolution paving the way for the conduct of house visitations of individuals identified as associated or members of communist front organizations, and stalking, surveillance, and harassment allegedly perpetrated by officers of the respondents.
They also assailed the military encampment in indigenous villages, residential houses and use of civilian facilities or structures and the filing of baseless charges against some of them that were eventually dismissed.
They said the CA erred in junking their plea, adding the appellate court’s resolution is not backed by evidence.
“Had the appeals court looked closer and had it conducted a summary hearing as required, it would have appreciated that petitioners’ evidence passed the ‘substantial evidence’ threshold required by the Rule on the Writ of Amparo,” they said.
“According to the court, the red tagging posts on Facebook do not constitute a present, imminent or actual threat on the petitioners’ life, liberty or security. If the hateful content does not pose a present or actual threat to the petitioners, is the court saying that the content is benign? Is there a yardstick against which any hateful speech can be measured to determine if it constitutes a real threat?” they added.
In the same petition, they also asked the SC to use its powers to compel the NTF-ELCAC to probe the alleged acts against them as prayed for in the original petition.
“The courts should now place the breaks on unbridled misuse of power by state forces. As for the troll accounts, the courts have the power to direct the respondents to investigate the acts alleged against them. In the event of refusal, the issuance of a writ of habeas data is in order,” they said.
A writ of amparo (a Spanish word that means protection) is a special writ to protect or enforce a constitutional right other than physical liberty while a writ of habeas data is a petition asking the court to compel the respondent to delete or destroy damaging information.
They also asked the SC to disqualify the Office of the Solicitor General from representing the respondents, on the ground that they were impleaded in their personal capacity and not in their official capacity.
The assailed CA decision issued last April through Associate Justice Angeline Mary Quimpo-Sale affirmed with finality its October 2022 decision denying the CPA’s petition for a writ of amparo.
