NTF-ELCAC-LCC PRESS STATEMENT ON UP MINDANAO

PRESS STATEMENT

In a 21 May 2022 Statement, the University of the Philippines – Mindanao (UP Mindanao), through its Chancellor Lyre Annie E. Murao, denounced the so called “red-tagging” by the National Security of Council (NSC) and has warned the authorities that it will take legal action over the alleged “harassment”.

By UP Mindanao’s own words in its Statement, however, the alleged “redtagging” that they denounced did not come from the NSC, but from a recent post from an “alumnus” of UP Mindanao about the New People’s Army (NPA) recruitment in the UP Mindanao campus.

Effectively, UP Mindanao admitted from the words of their own alumnus, no less, that the NPA has infiltrated their campus for recruitment of students into the ranks of communist terrorists.

Therefore, it is sheer hypocrisy for UP Mindanao to attribute “red-tagging” as mere “allegations” and “hasty generalizations” of the NSC – when no less than one of its own alumnus has admitted that NPA has infiltrated their educational campus.

Too, UP Mindanao is blissfully ignorant of the plethora of students who testified in the Senate hearings, and on the disqualification cases pending before the Commission of Elections (COMELEC) of party-lists belonging to KABAG (specifically the Kabataan and Gabriela Partylists), testifying therein that the NPA through its fronts has infiltrated and recruited students from several universities nationwide.

UP Mindanao’s alumnus is one of brave students who fearlessly testified the truth despite UP Mindanao’s attempt to hide the open-secret of NPA’s infiltration and radicalization of universities.

If UP Mindanao truly lives by its vision of generating critical thinking, then it should encourage more students to truthfully state the evils of NPA hiding among the shadows in universities and preying among the students.

To immediately dismiss outright a report coming from their very own alumnus is a betrayal of their vaunted “critical thinking”.

Instead of threatening to file actions against the government, UP Mindanao should comply and respect the government agencies such as NSC, the military, and the police – which have the mandate of protecting the people and the students, and to investigate the reports of NPA and communist terrorists lurking among their ranks.

National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict Legal Cooperation Cluster (LCC)