STRESSING the need for government to focus its energy in “addressing inequality and lack of opportunities” for the poor and the marginalized, president-elect Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr.’s incoming national security adviser (NSA) Clarita Carlos announced that there will no longer be red-tagging in the new administration as this runs counter to the former senator’s call for unity and reconciliation.
“I have repeatedly declared that Red-tagging should be stopped because it makes no sense labeling people. For me, as a social scientist, when you use labels, that means you are a lazy person because you don’t know how else to (identify) a person,” Carlos pointed out in a press briefing on Friday night.
According to the retired University of the Philippines (UP) professor, government should (instead) invest its resources on “issues of injustice, lack of opportunity and the huge inequality between the poor and the rich.”
“A militaristic approach to counterinsurgency never works. Why are you ID-ing people as if you are concluding already? Stop this red-tagging,” she said. “Empirical evidence after empirical evidence, the military route never works, so huwag na. Para naman tayong loku-loko n’yan, paulit-ulit na alam mo na ngang hindi nagwo-work iyan eh. Do what works,” she noted
“National security is not just about military engagements and things outside our oceans, beyond our shores. It is really about human security, energy security, food security and the like,” she added.
In ending, Carlos likewise cited that labeling people as communists was “not productive” and had not done much to end the 50-year-old insurgency.
