PROGRESSIVE groups in Baguio City lauded the decision of a judge who ordered the Police Regional Office-Cordillera Administrative Region to stop publishing materials and tarpaulins politically vilifying youth leaders as members, legal fronts, or recruiters of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

“The court order, though initial, is a meaningful victory not just for us as petitioners, but all activists and critics facing daily threats. Political dissent has been upheld as a right not a crime,” the youth groups said in a statement.

“This is an acknowledgement that red-tagging is a threat to life and liberty. As activists, we will remain true to our principles to serve the people in the face of difficulties and sacrifices,” it added.

Judge Emmanuel Rasing of the Baguio City Regional Trial Court Branch 3 issued the order on March 25 pending the resolution of the activists’ petition for a writ of amparo, a remedy available to any person ‘whose right to life, liberty, and security is violated or threatened’.

Rasing ordered PRO-CAR chief Police Brigadier General R’win Pagkalinawan to respond to the allegations, together with supporting affidavits, within a non-extendible period of 5 days.

“In the meantime, and also as agreed at the hearing on March 24, without necessarily admitting responsibility for those already posted or publicized, respondent Police Regional Office Cordillera, including all PNP units, groups, stations, officers, and offices under it, shall henceforth make no social media or tarpaulin postings, or public postings by any other means, branding/tagging herein petitioners and the organizations they belong to as stated in the petition, as communists-terrorists,” Rasing said.

On March 24, red-tagged youth leaders filed a petition before the Baguio City court seeking to prevent PNP-CAR from posting any materials linking them to communist terrorist groups.

The youth leaders have cited the rampant red-tagging activities of PNP-CAR in the past months, prompting them to file complaints before the Commission on Human Rights-CAR and the Baguio City Council.

“After months of documenting incidents in and out of social media, we felt that we urgently needed more decisive actions on cases of red-tagging and to prevent other human rights violations that come with it,” they said.

The petitioners are Kabataan partylist Cordillera coordinator Christian Dave Ruz, National Union of Students of the Philippines Cordillera spokesperson Deanna Louise Montenegro, University of the Philippines-Baguio student council chairperson Leandro Enrico Ponce, and Cordilleran Youth Center overall coordinator Keidy Transfiguracion.

“If the petition is granted, the privileges will also be granted, one of them possibly a protective order,” they said.