It is amusing to read about individuals or groups protesting about being tagged as New People's Army or NPA supporters, or even communists themselves. At least one of them filed a civil suit for damages against two anchors of a program in SMNI for allegedly tagging him as a communist sympathizer and his mother as a closeted communist.

Red-tagging has become a whipping boy of leftist organizations and their sympathizers. The dwindling number of left-leaning party-list representatives who survived the electoral debacle of their comrades have become the mouthpiece. They have been regularly and constantly attacking the government officials who described them as supporters of the communist rebels.

This protesting sector of our society has described red-tagging as "the act of labeling individuals or groups as "communist fronts," "communist terrorists," or communist sympathizers." They have likened such acts to "McCarthyism" in the 1950s in the United States.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines McCarthyism as "1. The political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence; and 2. The use of methods of investigation and accusation regarded as unfair, to suppress opposition."

McCarthyism is known as the "second Ref Scare" in the United States. It was an era of "political repression and persecution of left-wing individuals and a campaign spreading fear of alleged communist and Soviet influence on American institutions and Soviet espionage in the United States during the late 1940s through the 1950s."

Joseph McCarthy, a Wisconsin Senator, started what appeared to become a national witch-hunt in the United States in the late forties and early fifties. He rose to national prominence in the US after an alleged three-year undistinguishable stay in the US Senate, after delivering a speech in Congress where he claimed to have a list of "members of the communist party and members of a spy ring employed in the US State Department."

As a result of McCarty's speech, congressional hearings were conducted by the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities that led to the imprisonment of 10 Hollywood screenwriters and directors. Likewise, hundreds of their colleagues in the movie industry were placed on the "blacklist."

The so-called human rights groups in the Philippines claim that red-tagging is often done without evidence.

A human rights alliance group, Karapatan, slammed the NTF-ELCAC for gaining "notoriety in the red-tagging, harassing and intimidating political activists and other government critics and for instigating mass surrenders of civilians alleged to be supporters of the revolutionary movement."

Karapatan alleged, "Many of the victims of NTF-ELCAC's red-tagging campaigns had ended up arrested and detained on trump-up charges, while others have been killed by vigilante groups or in armed encounters staged by the military."

There is a whale of a difference between the red-baiting in the United States during the McCarthyism period and the so called red-tagging in the Philippines.

For one, those who have been red-tagged, if they feel they have been unjustly classified as communist supporters or secret members of the NPA, can always resort to civil suits for damages, just like one of them did. Unlike the late Senator McCarty, the perceived violators of their human rights are not immune from lawsuits. McCarty was immune from being sued when he red-tagged suspected members of the communist party because he enjoyed parliamentary immunity when he delivered the red-tagging speech.

The claim that those red-tagged by government officials led to their deaths is just a claim. The human rights groups have not produced any proof of that. As to those arrested and jailed, it only means there was probable cause for the crimes they have been charged with — hence, the courts issued warrants for their arrest.

As to the claim of trump-up charges, there have been instances where the courts have dismissed those criminal cases filed against them because the prosecution failed to produce the quantum of proof required by law in court. They can seek judicial redress by filing malicious criminal prosecution against those who made up the false charges plus damages.

(To be continued)