Baguio-based youth institution slams red-tagging

2 MIN READ

By KHIM ABALOS
www.nordis.net

BAGUIO CITY — Cordilleran Youth Center (CYC) condemned the spate of state-sponsored red-tagging against its office and partner organizations.

In a statement, the group stressed that vilification and red-tagging endanger the security of the institution, its members, and volunteers.

“This act of desperation is an attack against civil society and our development workers who envision nothing but an empowered youth and students,” the organization said.

CYC is a non-government organization (NGO) that provides services to the youth and students in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).

The most recent incident is the Facebook posts accusing CYC Overall Coordinator Keidy Transfiguracion and former head of its Committee on Cultural Revitalization and Development Julius Daguitan as recruiters for the New People’s Army (NPA). Also included were member organizations from the different schools in Baguio City. They traced the malicious post to a fictitious Facebook account named “Teamy Macky.”

“It is deeply saddening that amid these trying times with the pandemic, COVID-19, our unremitting efforts to provide relief support and assistance in the production of PPEs for our frontline workers and responders have been debased with malicious accusations,” CYC said.

The NGO underscored that for 15 years, the institution advanced the rights and welfare of the youth and students in the region.

Among the activities organized by the center were social services and relief operations in deprived areas of the region.

They also implemented projects aimed at empowering indigenous youth and students against land grabbing and development aggression.

Diwa Dammay, a CYC staff, expressed disappointment that some people still find time to vilify private groups and individuals that are providing emergency response during the COVID-19 pandemic. She noted that they are the ones filling the services that the government fails to provide to the public.

“Instead of us uniting to help fight this pandemic, other people made baseless accusations to divide the people and destroy our organization’s credibility,” she said.

According to her, people maligning their organization, and members should instead assist those affected by the pandemic.

“Vilifying and tagging us as communist rebels will not resolve the problems caused by the pandemic nor cure the disease,” Dammay said.

CYC has been responding to the needs of students and communities in Baguio City and La Trinidad, Benguet since the Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine started.

To date, its relief operations benefitted 130 stranded students and community youth. CYC also gave out relief packs to at least a hundred families of night market vendors. The youth center also distributed improvised personal protective equipment to barangay frontline workers in 30 barangays. # nordis.net