‘Red-tagging’ senior Manila officer slammed

MANILA: The National Privacy Commission (NPC) on Thursday denounced a senior military general blamed for the “Red-tagging” of a young businesswoman who set up a “community or village pantry” to provide essential needs especially food for poor residents adversely affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

In a statement, Raymund Liboro, the NPC chief, said the agency “denounces in the strongest terms any act of unjust profiling of community pantry organisers whom we consider heroes of the pandemic as this may violate their privacy.”

“We have always been firm,” Liboro added, “in our stand that unjust profiling activities are unwelcome due to risks it may entail for our citizens such as stereotyping and discrimination.”

Liborowasreferringtolieutenantgeneralantonio Parlade, the spokesman of a military anti-insurgency task force, who admited they were conducting a background check on businesswoman Ana Patricia Non, the organiser of the first community pantry in Metro Manila that has now been replicated by more than 300 similar facilities throughout the country.

More specifically, Parlade cited a Biblical story in which he likened Non to “Satan” who deceived Eve into eating the prohibited fruit that resulted in her banishment by the Almighty along with Adam from paradise called Eden.

Parlade, also the military’s Southern Luzon Command, cited the Bible in a TV5 interview with “The Chiefs” that drew widespread protests and condemnation especially from netizens as well as lawmakerswhodemandedhisousterasthespokesman of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). Due to Parlade’s threat to conduct a background check on her possible link to communist insurgents, Non stopped for a day the operation of the village pantry, similar to the “food banks” set up in the US to help the poor.

But Non immediately resumed operation following assurances from officials for her security, which was highlighted by an announcement on Thursday from General Cirilito Sobejana, the chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, that he ordered the military to help provide vegetables to Non’s community pantry and the more than 300 similar facilities set up throughout the country.