Why the military attacked CNN for typhoon relief donation drive
Tags: Philippines, Disinformation, Redtagging, Opinion

Editorial

Editorial Cartoon by Ramone Tumonong

Typhoons Rolly and Ulysses were devastating tropical cyclones that claimed 32 casualties (26 dead and 6 missing), cost over ₱17.9 billion, and forced people into packed evacuation centers in the midst of a global pandemic. In response, local companies and student organizations mobilized to conduct donation drives for the victims of the storm’s onslaught; CNN Philippines even started a thread to signal boost these initiatives. Of course, the Duterte administration could not pass up the chance to ruin this heartwarming moment.

Lorraine T. Badoy, the spokesperson for the military’s National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), attacked CNN for promoting the League of Filipino Students’ (LFS) donation drive.

Badoy claimed that LFS was “a known front” of the Communist Party, the NPA and the NDF. She also insinuated that CNN had been infiltrated by the same organizations. Neither statement had a shred of evidence to back them up, but being truthful or credible was never the point. Which brings us to an intriguing question; what is the point of redtagging?

Let’s look at the life cycle of Badoy’s redtagging post. Initially, it reached a few early victims, who react in one of two ways. For people who do not realize that the Cold War has been over for 20 years, decades of cultural paranoia about leftism kicks in and they direct their anger towards the “communists”. For those who see through the disinformation, the bald-faced lies cause a righteous rage. Either way, redtagging provokes outrage.

Now, here’s an unfortunate problem with social media; outrage is great publicity. The strong feelings induced make people share the post with impassioned captions condemning or defending the accused. Arguments over who is right, often involving numerous comments, erupt; both of these are seen by Facebook’s algorithms as engagement and the post is shown to even more people. The cycle repeats itself, and the accusation, much like 2020, goes viral.

While this particular instance happened on Facebook, redtagging comes in many platforms, even national television. In a recent episode of “The Chiefs” on OneTV, Lt. Gen Antonio Parlade Jr. claimed, without evidence (a recurring theme in matters like these), that communist insurgents have “infiltrated” every media outlet in the country.

There’s a method to this madness; redtagging is an effective, if reprehensible, political strategy. Let’s take a look at the targets of the two examples we discussed; Lorraine Badoy targeted an activist group and a media outlet, while Lt. Parlade made a blanket accusation redtagging pretty much every journalist. Both of these groups have one thing in common; they are the government’s, and by extension the military’s, most ardent critics.

By accusing their critics of sedition, the military instantly frames any criticism as unpatriotic communist propaganda. Of course, this doesn’t work on everyone; many see right through it and call the lie out, but as far as the armed forces and their supporters are concerned, this is just more leftist slander. This narrative is outrageous — but, as we discussed, outrage is great publicity. The conversation becomes focused on whether or not the accused “communists” should be jailed or left alone, and the (often valid) criticism slips out of public consciousness.

But this isn’t the only effect of redtagging. Victims must not only cope with the initial libel, they must suffer harassment and slander (in extreme cases, even doxxing) from the zealous supporters of the redtagger. It also vilifies the legitimate contributions and campaigns these groups forward. This is most concerning with respect to how the military undermines the media, who play an important role in spreading crucial information. By undermining the credibility of all journalists, the military discourages their supporters from listening to media outlets. In 2020, when sharing new guidelines with respect to quarantine and the most recent news about the state of the country is more important than ever, we cannot afford to have people choose to stay uninformed.

NTF-ELCAC recently asked for a 19 billion peso operating budget for 2021 — money which they spend on funding spreading disinformation and redtagging the citizens that they are sworn to serve and protect. This is enough to fund a full recovery from the havoc of the recent storm season with money to spare; better yet, it can go towards countryside development, typhoon rehabilitation and preparedness initiatives, and public health programs as proposed by Sen. Risa Hontiveros. These social welfare programs will bring prosperity and wellness to locals, which will probably be much more effective in peacekeeping. Healthy, wealthy farmers aren’t usually desperate enough for armed revolution.

The military and other institutions that resort to redtagging to undermine their critics should devote their efforts to ensuring that their detractors have nothing to criticize. At the very least, they should come up with a new bogeyman; the whole Red Scare thing is so last century.