THE ALLIANCE of Concerned Teachers filed a complaint against the Department of Education before the International Labor Organization in connection with the alleged spate of red-tagging statements issued by Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte against the group.

The complaint was received by ILO Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific Chihoko Asada Miyakawa.

It cited the red-tagging incidents found in DepEd statements released through its official Facebook page and signed by Duterte.

The group included the joint press conference of the DepEd and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict on April 4, 2023, which the group said was solely dedicated to incriminate ACT and its leaders.

“The intensified red-tagging of no less than the vice president and secretary of DepEd against our teachers’ unions only indicates that the Philippines government is not upholding the recommendations made by the High-Level Tripartite Mission of the International Labor Organization when the body investigated the cases of violations against freedom of association last January 23 to 26, 2023,” Raymond Basilio, ACT secretary general, said.

“Red-tagging our legal and legitimate unions is a violation of the freedom of association and poses grave dangers to the life of our organization and leaders as records show that rampant red-tagging preceded all harassments, intimidation, illegal arrest and detention, and extra-judicial killings perpetrated against unionist in recent years,” Basilio added.

Basilio said the ILO-HLTM has observed that despite the government’s denial that a red-tagging policy is in place, the repeated reference of government agencies to the alleged connection of workers and unions to the Communist Party of the Philippines clearly belies this claim.

“It was well-expressed in the ILO-HLTM report that ‘the practice of red-tagging should stop and any suspicion of criminal acts should be brought before appropriate judicial bodies with assurances of due process and respect for the presumption of innocence,” Basilio said.

“There is no other way to protect our right to free association but to push back and make accountable those who dare trample on it. We cannot give up our unions as it is our only recourse to assert our economic and political rights, especially in this time of grave economic crisis and state repression,” he added.