NSC exec fires back at Gabriela over red-tagging claim

NSC Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya

MANILA, Philippines — The Gabriela Party-list could be “barking up the wrong tree” as the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-Elcac) on Wednesday denied the group’s red-tagging and gender-based sexual harassment allegations.

At a Presidential Communications Office panel discussion in Malacañang, National Security Council spokesperson Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya dismissed the party-list’s claims, which were lodged before the Commission on Elections earlier in the day.

Malaya said the group’s claims were baseless as red-tagging “has never been the policy of the NTF-Elcac.”

“If [there are] any, it is the former rebels who are the ones red-tagging them. We have many individuals who were part of the communist movement who have now joined mainstream society and they are the ones exposing these individuals, those people that they were part of, that they know for a fact who are part of the communist movement,” he said.

“So, I think the Gabriela Women’s Party list is barking up the wrong tree,” Malaya added.

He also noted that the NTF-Elcac is an instrument used to dismantle the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army, which, he said, was the reason they were being “attacked.”

“Kami sa NTF-Elcac, we do not engage in red-tagging; it is the former rebels who are the ones who are exposing and telling the truth about them,” Malaya further said.

(At NTF-Elcac we do not engage in red-tagging; the former rebels are exposing and telling the truth about them.)

Based on Gabriela Party-list’s 10-page complaint filed before the poll body, the group’s “elected and incumbent officials in Congress, its nominees, officers, and members” have been receiving a “continuous, vicious, and systematic vilification campaign” allegedly perpetrated by NTF-Elcac, the military, and individuals such as Antonio Parlade, Lorraine Badoy, and paid trolls through their respective fake accounts.

When asked where the red-tagging claims came from, Gabriela Party-list first nominee Sarah Elago cited a portion of an NTF-ELCAC press release: “the NTF-Elcac stands by the truth and supports those who expose the ties that bind Makabayan-affiliated groups, including Rep. Brosas’ partylist, to the violence of the CPP-NPA-NDF.”

Elago said that the complaint is in line with the Comelec Resolution No. 11116 or the Anti-discriminatory and Fair Campaigning Guidelines for the 2025 elections.