19/02/2026
STATEMENT | NTF-ELCAC's "Ground Zero" Lie—A Smokescreen for Urban Repression
The NTF-ELCAC can keep spinning its narratives, but we in Karapatan-NCR see this "ground zero" declaration for what it really is: a desperate agency manufacturing enemies to justify its own existence.
So now Metro Manila is the new frontline of communist disinformation? The battle has supposedly shifted from the countryside to our cities? This is pure invention—a smokescreen designed to legitimate what's already happening on the ground: the systematic red-tagging, surveillance, and harassment of urban poor groups, labor unions, and human rights defenders in the National Capital Region.
They're not describing a threat. They're creating one.
Let's look at what the NTF-ELCAC actually means when they talk about "countering disinformation":
"Unifying the peace constituency" means demanding absolute loyalty to the state's narrative. Question the government? You're the enemy. Call out human rights violations? You're a front. Defend victims of militarization? You're part of the conspiracy.
"Proactive narrative-building" means flooding the information space with government propaganda so that reports of extrajudicial killings, warrantless arrests, and military harassment get buried under a mountain of press releases.
And "intensifying youth-centered digital engagement"? Let's call this what it is: campus surveillance. The NTF-ELCAC wants to monitor student organizations, track young activists, and s***f out dissent before it finds its voice. They're not protecting the youth from radicalization—they're protecting the status quo from a generation that demands accountability.
We've seen this playbook before.
In the countryside, it meant aerial bombings in Mindoro that killed indigenous children . It meant displacement of Mangyan communities to make way for mining interests . It meant red-tagging that turned farmers and development workers into targets for militarized operations .
Now they're bringing the same tactics to Metro Manila. And they have the audacity to call it "peace-building."
Just last month, we witnessed how the NTF-ELCAC, in cahoots with the PNP, tried to block progressive candidates from announcing their bids, denied permits for legitimate political gatherings, and threatened residents who dared to show support . This is not counter-insurgency. This is electoral interference dressed up as national security.
The NTF-ELCAC talks about "defending the truth." But the truth is this: red-tagging kills. The truth is that state forces have been documented harassing journalists, intimidating witnesses, and suppressing any voice that refuses to fall in line. The truth is that an agency created to end armed conflict has outlived its mandate and now needs to invent battles to justify its multi-billion-peso budget.
Metro Manila is not a battleground.
It is where workers organize for living wages. Where urban poor communities resist demolition. Where students protest tuition hikes and academic repression. Where human rights defenders document state violence and demand justice. The NTF-ELCAC looks at this vibrant democratic space and sees a conspiracy. We see the Filipino people exercising their rights.
The surge in red-tagging incidents we're documenting across NCR—against transport groups, against community organizers, against lawyers defending political prisoners—is not a response to communist propaganda. It is the policy. It is the NTF-ELCAC's playbook being tested in real time, in our neighborhoods, on our campuses, in our streets.
Let's be clear: the only disinformation here comes from the state itself.
The lie that every critic is a communist. The lie that every activist is a front. The lie that every call for accountability is part of some grand conspiracy hatched in the countryside and now "weaponized" online. That's not counter-insurgency. That's authoritarianism pretending to be policy.
Karapatan-NCR stands with every organization, every community, every individual being targeted by this escalating repression. We will continue to document, to expose, and to resist. We call on all Metro Manila residents—workers, students, urban poor, indigenous peoples, human rights defenders—to remain vigilant. They are trying to isolate us, to intimidate us, to make us afraid of our own organizing.
We will not be silenced.
Stop the red-tagging. Stop the surveillance. Stop the militarization of our cities.
Abolish the NTF-ELCAC.
