Philippine students and activists yesterday protested a government decision to allow security forces to patrol the campuses of the nation’s biggest university after authorities accused it of being a breeding ground for communist rebels.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s government has stepped up efforts to end a Maoist-led rebellion, one of the world’s longest insurgencies that has killed more than 40,000 people.
However, the UN had warned in a report that “red-tagging,” or labeling people and groups as communists or terrorists, and incitement to violence have been rife in the nation.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The government, in a decision made public late on Monday, scrapped a 1989 agreement that had prevented soldiers and police from entering the 17 campuses of the University of the Philippines (UP) without consent, except during emergencies or when in hot pursuit.
“This signals greater repression, harassment and harm among activists, youth and students and other people [who] they maliciously tag as communists, terrorists and will result in the militarization of campuses,” Eleanor de Guzman, secretary for human rights of a labor group, told a crowd of about 100 protesters.
Justifying the decision to scrap the 1989 agreement, Philippine Secretary of National Defense Delfin Lorenzana said in a statement that the 112-year-old university “has become the breeding ground of intransigent individuals and groups whose extremist beliefs have inveigled students to join their ranks to fight against the government.”
A number of UP students, some killed in military operations or captured, had been identified as members of the communist party’s armed wing, the Philippine Department of National Defense said in a letter to the university’s president, without providing evidence.
UP president Danilo Concepcion urged the department to reconsider the decision, while Philippine Vice President Maria Leonor Robredo said the action was “designed to silence criticism.”
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