If the ACT is really an organization of concerned teachers, it should condemn the communists who have infiltrated the ranks of teachers and students in colleges and universities
The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), a noisy and troublesome group of teachers believed to be associated with or sympathetic to local communists, managed to land in the news reports of one of the daily newspapers some weeks ago.
In the said news report, the ACT accused the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. of “red-tagging” the group.
More specifically, the ACT protested that it has been repeatedly linked by the military to the local communist movement.
The group claimed the most recent “red-tagging” incident took place during a press conference weeks ago by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
A certain Raymond Basilio, who calls himself the ACT secretary-general, publicly made the non sequitur conclusion the “red-tagging” unduly affects the teachers’ freedom of association.
Purportedly for that reason, Basilio wants the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to censure government agencies engaged in “red-tagging” not just of the ACT but of other similarly-minded organizations.
The ACT spokesman also said the group has protested the matter before the International Labor Organization (ILO).
Basilio’s protestations are sheer nonsense.
Government officials and employees, and any person living in the Philippines for that matter, have the right to express views on any matter of public interest and concern.
That right is guaranteed under the Constitution, and finds support in jurisprudence.
Since the ACT has a penchant for claiming certain government agencies allegedly violate human rights, that makes the group fair game for public criticism.
“Red-tagging” is not even a crime in our statute books.
Thus, it is absurd for the grandstanding Basilio to urge the CHR to censure anyone engaged in “red-tagging.”
Further, ACT’s complaint lodged with the ILO is pure fabrication because not a single teacher affiliated with the ACT has been prohibited by the government from continuing their membership in the said organization, or from associating themselves with elements publicly perceived by many to be communists.
Besides, why did the ACT run to the ILO, instead of protesting the matter with the Department of Labor and Employment, or with the courts of law in the country?
What the ACT did certainly confirms public suspicion that their protestations are groundless, and that Basilio’s public statements are designed to get the ACT free publicity, and nothing more. To repeat, Basilio’s statements are sheer nonsense.
If the ACT is unhappy about its current reputation, it has only itself to blame for the same.
The ACT’s press announcements are almost always against the government.
It has never criticized the many atrocities committed by violent cadres of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front troika in the countryside.
I have yet to hear the ACT denounce the late CPP founder and puppetmaster Jose Ma. Sison for living a life of luxury in his exile in Holland, or decry communist cadres who extort “revolutionary taxes” from businesses operating in the provinces.
Moreover, the ACT toes the same political line as other organizations perceived to be sympathetic to the local communists, if not allied with the latter.
It is plausible to say the foregoing observations may be the reasons why the NTL-ELCAC believes the ACT and similarly-minded organizations are front organizations of local communists.
If the ACT is really an organization of concerned teachers, it should condemn the communists who have infiltrated the ranks of teachers and students in colleges and universities.
Instead of teaching what should be taught in the classrooms, teachers aligned with or sympathetic to the local communist movement must spend most of their working hours brainwashing their students with communist ideologies, preaching hatred for the duly-elected government, and calling for its violent overthrow.
Teachers of this kind have zero tolerance for anyone who disagrees with their red ideology, and they are quick in castigating critics of communism.
These teachers are so obsessed with communist ideologies that their skills as educators have dulled through the years due to misuse or non-use.
I’ve listened to many radical teachers and students featured in the television news and almost all of them can’t even speak in straight English and are inarticulate.
Many teachers and professors in the University of the Philippines are communist sympathizers.
Instead of earning their salaries as classroom educators, they preach radical politics in class and convince their students to hate the government.
To repeat, they are absolutely intolerant of views that differ from theirs, and they conceitedly think their public statements should be considered gospel truth by everybody.
This was well-felt during the short-lived term of UP Diliman Chancellor Fidel Nemenzo, who lost his bid for UP president last year, and who failed to get himself re-elected as chancellor recently, notwithstanding the purported display of support he got from campus radicals and a few opinionated faculty members.
