Serious threats against a member of the teachers’ union

On 12 September 2019, Ophelia Tabacon, a teacher at the Camaman-an Elementary School in Cagayan de Oro City and a member of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) union, discovered flyers bearing her photograph alongside those of other human rights advocates posted on a wall. The flyers claimed she was a “communist teacher” and accused her of brainwashing minors to turn them into communists. The flyers also accused Ophelia’s son, Sigfyl Tabacon, of being a leader of the “terrorist New People’s Army (NPA)” together with her daughter-in-law Kristin Lim.
The accusations made in the flyer are part of a process known as “red-tagging” whereby anyone considered to be on the left or critical of the government is labelled as a communist and as a dangerous terrorist. Some of the people included in the flyers were accused of trumped-up cases of multiple murder, attempted murder, and other crimes linked to the activities of the NPA. Ophelia Tabacon herself faced trumped-up charges of arson, kidnapping and robbery for her alleged involvement in an NPA raid in Sibagat. Ophelia Tabacon has never been to Sibagat nor has she participated in such activities.
Accusing Ophelia of being an NPA combatant puts her life at risk, making her a target for extra-judicial killing. Shortly after the flyers bearing her photograph appeared she received a note – in a package with more flyers disguised as materials for a seminar she was attending – that amounted to a death threat from the Anti-Communist Terrorist Vigilante (ACTIV).