Military violations, technological hacks and disinformation characterized additional red-tagging incidents reported to Kontra Daya as election day progressed. These are on top of the earlier-recorded direct participation of the AFP in the terror-tagging of some candidates and party list groups, various tarpaulins vilifying them, and other instances of using fake news to demonize parties perceived by the government as critics or oppositionists.

Uniformed men continued to figure in red-tagging cases in Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog. In Amsic High School, Barangay Amsic, Angeles City, Pampanga, a voters’ assistance desk manned by local volunteers and policemen was riddled with red-tagging posters linking the MAKABAYAN bloc party list groups to the CPP-NPA-NDF. 

In Calintaan, Occidental Mindoro, the military reportedly announced that part of the materials confiscated from the NPA were Leni Robredo campaign materials.

Tarpaulins and posters in various places in Cagayan, Metro Manila, Pampanga, and Laguna were found to bear the fake news that red-tagged candidates were disqualified or that they should not be voted for. 

These are tarpaulins in Project 6 Elementary School and Quirino Elementary School in Quezon City, in Angeles Elementary School, Pulung Cacutud Elementary School in Angeles, and San Antonio Elementary School in San Pedro; and flyers in Camalaaniguan.

Meanwhile, activists’ phone numbers appeared to have been professionally hacked, implicating them in electioneering. Both the Anakpawis Party List and Save San Roque Alliance experienced being invoked in text messages announcing that they would be giving-away Php1,000 load cards and other effects. 

Relatedly, a member of the Samahan ng mga Manininda of UP Diliman Campus received a text message also containing disinformation, red-tagging party list groups under the Makabayan coalition and the Leni Robredo-Kiko Pangilinan presidential tandem.#

Leave a Comment