NUJP condemns AFP unit’s red-tagging of director, reporter

August 2, 2018

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines demands that the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the AFP Reserve Command immediately investigate and sanction the officers and personnel of the 101st Technical and Administrative Services Group for maliciously and recklessly maligning and endangering our deputy secretary general Raymund Villanueva of Kodao Productions and other colleagues.

On its Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/101stTASBaganiAFPRESCOM/), the unit posted photos obviously lifted from Villanueva’s own account, tagging him as part of the New People’s Army and supposedly out to takedown businesses in the country.

One of the photos the unit included was taken during our recent National Congress and showed other NUJP members, including our chairman Nonoy Espina, director Richel Umel, members Erwin Mascariñas and Merlyn Manos, and our close friend and colleague Ed Lingao.

The unit also posted a screengrabbed picture of a post by NUJP affiliate AlterMidya showing its staff member Avon Ang helping Leticia Espino, the elderly woman injured during Monday’s violent dispersal at Nutri-Asia.

We need not stress how such Red baiting by state security forces has had dire consequences for the targets of this vile and cowardly practice. In fact, the NUJP, as an organization, was once vilified as an “enemy of the state” in a PowerPoint presentation by the Intelligence Service of the AFP.

We serve notice to the 101st Technical and Administrative Services Group that we will not take this sitting down. We reserve the right to seek redress through legal action for this reckless endangerment of our colleagues and members.

Reference

Nonoy Espina

Chairperson