Red Flag
The National Guilder
The color blue has long since vanished from our national flag. Even our country's green flags, which stand for peace and harmony, have been defaced with toxic and greedy red marks. Every color has faded to a single shade of crimson. Deep crimson has engulfed our place, minds, and souls with a palpable sense of terror and trauma.
The crimson that causes deep fear is there to serve as a constant reminder of what has been happening in our country. Those were the innocent people who had shed their blood in pursuit of truth, justice, and freedom. Never-to-be-forgotten drops of human blood. It was the blood that stained the blue flag into the most horrific red color possible.
The case of the five accused New People's Army (NPA) rebels who were slain after a series of incidents with militaries in Purok 8, Barangay Andap, New Bataan town in Davao de Oro on Thursday morning, February 24, was added to the list of innocent citizens who were killed as a result of terrorism allegations against them. Two of those killed were well-known teachers from Lumad schools.
Activist and volunteer community school teacher Chad Booc was identified as one of those who were murdered. Chad Booc was one of those known "Bakwit School 7" that were arrested last February 15, 2021, on suspicion that they were recruiting Lumad minors and training them as “child warriors” of the communist rebel movement at the University of San Carlos - Talamban Campus in Cebu City. However, neither the institution nor any of the children claimed that they received military training on its grounds. Similarly, the volunteer teacher from Barangay Lapu-Lapu, Maco, Davao de Oro, named Jojarain Alce Nguho III lost his life in the said 'encounter' as the military identified the two as among the alleged NPA members.
Captain Mark Anthony Tito, public affairs office commander of the 10th Infantry Division, claimed that Booc was a well-known activist and 'NPA' recruiter while attending the University of the Philippines during his undergraduate years. Despite repeated accusations by state forces, there has been no formal evidence to prove Booc's membership in the NPA, which resulted in his release last year after a prolonged investigation. In addition, contrary to military accounts, the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) asserted that no armed encounter instrument had been deployed in the region of the alleged encounter between the group and the military. As a result, there is no reason to think that Booc and Nguho's deaths were caused by an armed confrontation between the Armed Forces of the Philippines(AFP) and the NPA.
Booc earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science degree as a cum laude from the University of the Philippines-Diliman. At the Alternative Learning Center Agricultural Development (ALCADEV) in Surigao del Sur, he served as a volunteer math teacher for students from the Lumad community. However, as a result of the military's repeated accusations that ALCADEV and other Lumad schools were NPA fronts, the government in Mindanao ordered the closure of these institutions.
In 2019, the Philippine government officially closed down 55 Lumad schools in Davao, claiming the schools' non-compliance with the technical criteria of the Department of Education (DepEd) and unfounded charges of militarization, harassment, and other state-led acts of violence that are rampant in the Lumad ancestral domain have been used as a reason to justify the closure of most Lumad school campuses. This adds to the total of more than 3,600 IP students who have been denied an education as a result of this decision.
Booc and Nguho were among the innocent persons who died as a result of red-tagging. They were activists fighting for independence, as well as volunteers with a desire to assist their fellow citizens; however, they were murdered because of false accusations. The Save Our Schools Network (SOS) described the incident as a "bloody massacre" of civilians and not an "encounter." It was a horrific bloody massacre that will drive us to become a catalyst for change to put an end to this awful state of affairs.
Media are urged to maintain objectivity in their reporting, as they should be the first and foremost line of defense in preventing misinformation from spreading, especially since the Philippines' current wave of red-tagging, where the authorities label specific people as communists and terrorists, has gotten increasingly severe in recent weeks, targeting journalists, non-government organization workers, church members, educators, and activists, as well as those who offer free education and service to the underprivileged.
Individuals and groups that identified as activists or who work under the flag of a communist front are not prohibited from doing so, as long as they express their political beliefs peacefully and lawfully, for our Constitution guarantees that no man shall be arrested, much less murdered, purely because of his political beliefs, even as an activist, and that no man shall be tortured or imprisoned only because he aspires to our country. Hence, we must hold our state forces’ impunity under Rodrigo Duterte’s regime accountable as red-tagging is becoming more violent and putting innocent lives in peril.
