Red-Tagging in the Philippines: A License to Kill

February 2023 marked three years in prison for Frenchie Mae Cumpio, a 24-year-old Philippine
community journalist and executive director of the independent news website, Eastern Vista. In
2020, the Philippine government accused her of illegally possessing firearms and explosives;
Cumpio was reportedly denied “the right to present evidence and prove the utter falsehoods
against her.” She also faces politically motivated terror finance charges, which could land her 40
years in prison if found guilty.
Cumpio is one of many journalists “red-tagged” by the Philippines regime.
Red-tagging isn’t new to the country: Implemented in 1969, the government-backed
campaign was designed to “tag” and counter communist and Maoist groups, particularly the
New People’s Army (NPA). Red-tagging has since become a destructive tool to quash dissent.
Under the former Duterte government and his National Task Force to End Local Communist
Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), the regime has used the guise of red-tagging to crack down on
activists and dissidents.

In the Philippines, anyone who criticizes the government can be red-tagged. The regime’s
campaign includes falsely accusing journalists, activists, community leaders, and politicians of
being members of or involved in the NPA. The government often starts by spreading lies or fake
news about targets on public posters, television programs, or social media channels, branding
them as terrorists or communist members or sympathizers. These widespread fabrications are
often followed by threats or physical surveillance, eventually leading to attacks, arrest,
detention, or death by security forces or “unidentified persons/groups.”

Since 2016, many human rights defenders, activists, and journalists have been killed after being
red-tagged. Before the national election in May 2022, journalists, activists, and rights groups
have called on the next president-elect to put an end to this practice. Yet, red-tagging and
systematic persecution continues.

The murder was brazen and swift: two men entered the home of Juan Jumalon in the town of
Calamba in the southern Philippines while the radio journalist was broadcasting live on his on
Sunday morning show on 94.7 Gold FM. News reports said that one of the gunmen held a
member of Jumalon’s household staff at gunpoint while the other barged into the studio and
fatally shot the journalist. Screengrabs from video of the shooting, which was livestreamed on
Facebook before being taken down, show Jumalon slumped in his chair, his head tilted back,
still wearing his red baseball cap.
The murder of Jumalon, 57, was the fourth killing of a journalist since President Ferdinand
Marcos Jr. took office in June 2022. Another radio commentator, Cris Bunduquin, was fatally
shot in May. According to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, it was the 199th
killing of a journalist since democracy was restored in the Philippines in 1986.
Earlier this month, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued its latest Global Impunity
Index, which listed the Philippines as the eighth most dangerous country in the world for
journalists.
Those responsible for such killings usually evade justice. The Philippine group Center for Media
Freedom and Responsibility reports that only 11 percent of work-related killings of journalists
have resulted in convictions and very rarely are the masterminds apprehended. But aside from
the threat to their lives, Filipino journalists also face assaults, intimidation, and harassment.
This is very commonly done in the form of red-tagging, in which government officials and
security personnel dangerously accuse journalists of having links to the Philippines’ long-
running communist insurgency.
President Marcos, who quickly and commendably denounced the killing of Jumalon, should
ensure that his murder, as well as the continuing attacks against journalists, are investigated
thoroughly and impartially, and the perpetrators brought to justice.
As Marcos looks to garner support both at home and abroad, he should take this opportunity to
demonstrate that his government is serious about press freedom, civil liberties, and human
rights in the Philippines.
ICC

On January 26, 2023, a pre-trial chamber of the International Criminal

Court (ICC) authorized the court’s prosecutor to resume his investigation
into the situation in the Philippines. The investigation covers alleged crimes
committed from November 2011 to June 2016, including the large number
of extrajudicial killings in Davao City while former President Rodrigo
Duterte was its mayor as well as in other parts the country during his
presidency up until March 16, 2019, a day before the
Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute,
took effect. The Philippine government appealed the January 26 decision on
February 3. That appeal is pending.

International Criminal Court’s Philippines Investigation

The ICC is an independent judicial institution empowered to investigate and

prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide,
and the crime of aggression. Its establishment in 2002 signaled the
commitment of many countries to fight impunity for the worst international
crimes. Currently, 123 countries are ICC members, giving the ICC authority
under the Rome Statute to investigate and prosecute crimes committed by
their nationals or by anyone on their territory. The ICC is a court of last
resort, which means that it will only step in if national authorities are
unwilling or unable to investigate and prosecute crimes within the ICC’s
mandate.

The following questions and answers provided by Human Rights Watch

discuss the judges’ recent decision to authorize the resumption of the
Philippines investigation, the appeal, and next steps.
1. Why did the ICC open an investigation?

Soon after taking office in 2016, then-President Rodrigo Duterte unleashed

his “war on drugs,” which resulted in thousands of killings, mostly of the
urban poor. Human Rights Watch and others found that the police regularly
falsified evidence to justify the unlawful killings. The
government reported that members of the Philippine National Police and
the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency killed 6,252 people during anti-
drug operations from July 1, 2016, to May 31, 2022. After Ferdinand Marcos
Jr. became president in 2022, the government stopped releasing these
statistics.

The official death toll does not include those killed by unidentified gunmen
whom Human Rights Watch and other rights monitors have credible
evidence to believe operate in cooperation with local police and officials.
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR) calculated in a 2020 report that the death toll was at least 8,663.
Domestic human rights groups and the government-appointed Philippine
Commission on Human Rights state that the real number of “drug war”
killings is possibly triple the number included in the UN report.

The scale of the “drug war” killings prompted the then-ICC prosecutor,
Fatou Bensouda, to announce in February 2018 the opening of a
preliminary examination over the deaths, many of which are linked to
“extrajudicial killings in the course of police anti-drug operations.” In May
2021, following her analysis of these crimes, Bensouda requested the
court’s authorization to open an investigation into the situation in the
Philippines. The ICC pre-trial chamber authorized the opening of the
investigation in September 2021.

2. What happened before the January 26 decision, and why was

the investigation on hold?

In November 2021, the Philippine government asked the ICC prosecutor to

defer the investigation, claiming that national authorities had begun their
own investigations into cases of extrajudicial killings attributed to the police
during “drug war” operations. Upon receipt of the request, the
prosecutor temporarily suspended investigative activities pending his
assessment of the request.

In June 2022, the court’s current prosecutor, Karim Khan, asked the ICC
judges for authorization to resume his investigation, noting that the
Philippine government had not substantiated its deferral request and that
the domestic proceedings referenced “[did] not sufficiently mirror the
court’s investigation.”

MAHARLIKA FUNDS
The Maharlika Investment Fund law remains problematic despite its enactment but what we
can do is continue to be vigilant as this law is implemented – and try to hold the President
accountable.
Just less than eight months since it was first proposed in the House of Representatives, the
Maharlika Investment Fund bill is now a law.
On July 18, 2023, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed Republic Act 11954 in
Malacañang Palace amid smiles and cheers from lawmaker friends as well as his economic
team.
The thing is, the entire thing remains problematic to this day, even after its enactment.
First, even the proponents still don’t know what it really is.
In his speech, Marcos referred to Maharlika as the country’s first sovereign wealth fund –
when in fact, it isn’t. It’s more properly called a “strategic investment fund” since it can invest not
just in financial instruments (stocks, bonds), but also in economic projects. (Interestingly, the
President at one point called Maharlika Investment Fund “IMF” rather than “MIF.”)
Second, the fund was signed into law way too fast by international standards. Other
countries take years, not months, to carefully craft their own strategic investment funds,
especially since public funds are on the line.
As a result of the railroading of this measure, Maharlika was passed without consulting the
public whose monies will be put into this fund.
A Social Weather Stations survey showed that as of late March 2023, 47% or almost half
of adult respondents, knew “almost nothing or nothing” about the Maharlika bill, and a full third
said they had “only a little” knowledge about it. (Do they include some of the lawmakers who
unthinkingly voted in favor of the bill?)
In his speech right after signing the law, Marcos said, “Perhaps it’s time that we clarify all
the questions and answer all the questions that have been raised about the Maharlika fund.
What is its intent? What is it supposed to be? How is it supposed to work?”
wrong. All these questions should have been answered while the law was being deliberated
in Congress. (This calls to mind how Marcos diligently avoided debates and fora during the
2022 campaign trail.)
Third, after both houses of Congress agreed to adopt the bill’s Senate version, some
provisions were tweaked and fixed surreptitiously.
For instance, while the Senate bill included two prescriptive periods (10 years for crimes,
20 years for offenses), the final law includes only one (10 years for “crimes/offenses”). Who
exactly made these tweaks? Are these secret amendments – made after the bill was approved
by the Senate – valid?
Fourth, and most importantly, many of the fundamental defects of the law have not been
fixed. As many UP School of Economics faculty members (including myself) wrote in
a discussion paper dated June 6, Maharlika “violates fundamental principles of economics and
finance and poses serious risks to the economy and the public sector…”
That remains true to this day.
In other words, public funds put into Maharlika may end up vanishing in thin air in the event of
losses.
Rather than “widen the government’s fiscal space and ease pressure in financing public
infrastructure projects,” Maharlika may very well add to the country’s already huge debt burden
and crowd out funds for key government programs and investments.
Diversion of fundsThe Maharlika Investment Fund has been the subject of much controversy
after its swift passage in the House of Representatives. House Bill (HB) No. 6608 seeks to
establish an independent fund which the government can use to make strategic investments, or
what is more commonly called a “sovereign wealth fund.”
While it is easy to look at the successful sovereign wealth funds, such as Norway’s
Government Pension Fund and China’s China Investment Corp. (which have trillions in assets,
according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute) or even Singapore’s Temasek, there are also
some other funds out there that should serve as a warning — specifically, 1MDB.
PROBLEMS OF TRANSPARENCY
One of the most prominent scandals in the financial world was that involving 1MDB. 1Malaysia
Development Berhad, or 1MDB, was Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, and was the subject of
embezzlement and money laundering. An estimated $4.5 billion was alleged to have been
stolen from the 1MDB and it further incurred outstanding debts amounting to $7.8 billion.
Certainly, one might say that the 1MDB is just one sovereign wealth fund and that there
are more successful wealth funds out there. However, one of the oft-repeated criticisms against
sovereign wealth funds is their lack of transparency and accountability.
If the Philippine government were less corrupt, then maybe they could be trusted with a
fund like this. As of 2021, the Philippines ranked 117 (out of 180 countries) in the Corruption
Perception Index published by Transparency International. It scored a total of 33 out of 100.

Confidential and intelligence funds

MANILA, Philippines — Confidential funds — particularly those of the offices of President
Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte — are once again raising eyebrows as
opposition lawmakers flag the large sums in the proposed 2023 budget.
For the Office of the President, Marcos is asking for P4.5 billion in confidential and intelligence
funds — much like his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who also asked for the same amount in his
last budget.
Meanwhile, the Office of the Vice President (OVP) under the younger Duterte is asking for P500
million in confidential funds. Her predecessor Leni Robredo did not ask for any.
Copies of National Expenditure Programs since 2006 available on the website of the
Department of Budget and Management show that the president and vice president’s offices
under previous administrations typically got confidential funds but at more modest amounts.
For example, in the last budget submitted under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, her
office asked for P600 million in confidential and intelligence funds, which amounts to around
P930 million when adjusted for inflation.
Even more modest were the confidential and intelligence funds requested by Benigno Aquino
III, who in his last budget asked for only P500 million in total, amounting to just a little under
P600 million in today’s money.
Likewise, confidential funds for the OVP under previous administrations were miniscule or even
non-existent compared to what Vice President Duterte is asking for in the 2023 budget.
What are confidential and intelligence funds?
A 2015 joint circular between the Commission on Audit (COA), Department of Budget and
Management (DBM), Department of the Interior and Local Government, Governance
Commission for Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations (GCG) and the Department of
National Defense laid down guidelines on confidential and intelligence funds.
Confidential and intelligence funds are lump sum allocations set aside in the national budget for
expenses that involve surveillance and intelligence information gathering activities.
As its name suggests, confidential funds are for confidential expenses related to surveillance
activities in civilian government agencies that are intended to support their mandate or
operations.
Similarly, intelligence funds are for intelligence expenses related to information gathering
activities of uniformed and military personnel and intelligence practitioners that have direct
impact on national security.
How are confidential and intelligence funds audited?
Due to the nature of these funds, auditing them could be quite difficult as the COA is left to trust
whatever NGAs, local governments and GOCCs submit for them to countercheck.
But the 2015 joint circular provides that NGAs, local governments and GOCCs should prepare a
physical and financial plan supporting their request for confidential and/or intelligence funds
containing the estimated amount per project, activity and program.
Duterte plans to separate Mindanao

DAVAO – DAVAO CITY, Davao del Sur, Philippines — In a late-night

tirade against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for supposedly initiating
the latest moves to amend the Constitution, former President Rodrigo
Duterte said local political forces would be regrouping here to start a
movement for a “separate and independent Mindanao.”
In a press conference he called on Tuesday evening, Duterte said the
breakaway “won’t be a bloody one” but would follow the processes
established by the United Nations.

It was the latest show of rancor directed at his successor, revealing

how the rift had widened between the Duterte and Marcos families
which once formed the much-vaunted “Uniteam” of the 2022
presidential elections.

The 78-year-old Duterte also confirmed reports that he was keeping an

arsenal of 500 firearms — being “a gun collector” — but that all of
them were licensed by the Philippine National Police.

Ousted speaker to lead

According to Duterte, the new movement would be headed by Davao
del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez, a longtime ally whose stint as
speaker was cut short in 2018 when Duterte’s daughter, now Vice
President Sara Duterte, engineered his ouster.

Duterte said he picked Alvarez to lead because he had written a paper

on the merits of separating the South from the republic. “It is not
rebellion, not a bloody one, but we will follow the process provided by
the UN to gather signatures, verify these under oath and with the
presence of other (witnesses), signify that the people want to separate
(from the country).”
Singapore track
Mindanao would rather be “independent since nothing has happened in
the Philippines after so many presidents,” he said in the vernacular.
“Whatever we do [under the present setup] there will be another lousy
president.”Referring to the investigation being conducted by the
International Criminal Court on his brutal war on drugs during his
presidency, Duterte said: “If there will be a separate Mindanao
Republic, it could no longer enter Mindanao because Alvarez here will
hide me.”At the same press conference, Alvarez said Mindanao may
follow the track taken by Singapore in the 1960s when it separated
from Malaysia and became an independent state.“Singapore is a small
country, as big as Siargao of Surigao del Norte. It has no resources of
its own,” Alvarez said. “Mindanao has a lot of natural resources; we
have bigger potential.”Alvarez was one of the prime movers for the
creation of a constitutional commission during the Duterte
administration, but the movement fizzled out after Duterte was
advised by experts that it was not the right time to make the shift into
a federal system, with armed groups still active in different parts of the
country.As to the current moves to amend the 1987 Constitution,
Duterte warned President Marcos: “Stop this nonsense… Or you’ll go
out of Malacañang just like your father. Don’t count on the military; it’s
not yours.”

Firearms as gifts
The president, he added, should just be thankful and content for the
chance to serve at Malacañang and make the most of his term as “it
should be your chance to redeem your name.”As to his vast gun
collection, Duterte said: “I never keep a firearm in the house that was
not licensed by Camp Crame.”“I am a gun collector and people know
that; so sometimes when they visit me, they would bring firearms as a
gift; and I made sure that they get licensed immediately,” he
said.Without naming names, he said someone was “investigating” his
collection because he got a call from the PNP’s Firearms and
Explosives Office (FEO) telling him that it was being checked.

“How can they take that against me when guns are collectors’ items
and it is allowed by law?” he asked. “I told the [FEO], all those guns
had licenses, they’re there (in Camp Crame), show these to them.”

“Why are there so many guns? Because I served as mayor for years,
and people knew I loved guns, so those who knew me would give me
guns as a gift,” he said.