A SENATOR has rejected the proposal of visiting United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion Irene Khan to abolish the government’s anti-communist task force, saying it would be counterproductive to state efforts to rehabilitate former rebels.
“It is important that we maintain the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict’s presence and strengthen its mandate to continue the peaceful rehabilitation of rebel returnees,” Senator Maria Imelda “Imee” R. Marcos said in a statement.
Speaking at a news briefing on Feb. 2, Ms. Khan said the task force is outdated and recommended its abolition in order to “address some of the most critical drivers of red-tagging” as well as allow the Philippine government “to modernize peace-building approaches.”
Ms. Marcos said she found Ms. Khan’s statement “supremely presumptuous” coming from a foreigner and credited the task force for thousands of rebels peacefully returning to the fold of the law.
“The government has practically won against the communist insurgency, with only about 1,800 rebels left, according to our military and police,” the senator said.
Last September, the Ombudsman found former officials of the anti-communist task force guilty of “conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service,” after they labeled the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (ˆ) as a front for the Communist Party of the Philippines.
During a United Nations Human Rights Council session on Nov. 17, 2022, the United States said Philippine state officials should stop accusing people of being communists.
Last year, the Philippines remained the deadliest country in Asia for environmental and land defenders for a decade now, according to human rights watchdog Global Witness, which noted that 11 of the 16 killings in the region in 2022 happened in the archipelago. — John Victor D. Ordoñez
