A UNITED NATIONS (UN) expert on climate change and human rights urged the Philippines on Wednesday to disband its anti-communist task force, which he said was “operating with impunity.”

UN Special Rapporteur Ian Fry sought an independent investigation of the operations of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict or NTF-ELCAC, which ex-President Rodrigo R. Duterte created in 2018 to end half-a-century of communist insurgency that has stunted development in some parts of the country.     

Human rights groups have criticized the task force for “red-tagging,” the practice of accusing rivals or critics of supporting or joining Maoist rebels as a pretext to silence, arrest or even kill them. The government has denied that.

The task force is headed by the Philippine President and is composed of Cabinet officials including the military and police chiefs.

“It is clear that ELCAC is operating beyond its original mandate and is red-tagging people from the community and indigenous peoples and it appears as though private financial interests are driving ELCAC to do this,” Mr. Fry told reporters at the end of his 10-day visit to the Philippines.

“It’s moved beyond its mandate and its usefulness and needs to be disbanded outright, and the government needs to develop another approach to deal with terrorism issues, but it’s clear that this unit is operating with impunity,” he added.

The task force said it “takes strong exception to the call” made by Mr. Fry and assured the UN official that it is “a working and effective human rights mechanism.”

“In the interest of fairness and justice, he should have raised his concerns with us to ensure that he has full appreciation of the body’s mandate, operations, and over-all directions,” Interior Secretary Eduardo M. Año, who is the National Security adviser and vice president of NTF-ELCAC, said in a statement.

“Sadly, even if he had issues on the NTF ELCAC that are relevant to his report, he did not find time to do so.”

The Office of the Ombudsman in September reprimanded two former top task force officials after they accused the National Union of People’s Lawyers of having links with communist-terrorists.

The case was one of several complaints filed by the lawyer’s group against officials of the NTF-ELCAC, accusing them of abusing their authority in “persecuting and espousing lies” against the organization and its members after they questioned alleged human rights violations during the COVID-19 lockdown. — Reuters