CLAIM: The recent jeepney transport strike is communist-inspired.
RATING: FALSE
THE FACTS: Vice-President and DepEd Secretary, Sara Duterte, complains about how the week-long strike was a “painful interference” and “communist-inspired” because it is an inconvenience to students’ education.
Duterte reiterated this statement by affiliating members of Pinagkaisang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide (PISTON) and The Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT-Teachers) as “poisoned by the ideologies of bankrupt Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)”.
The rationale behind the jeepney strike is to reveal the systemic issue of how relevant jeepney drivers are in public transportation and how phasing out the old jeepneys would result in a loss of profit for a lot of these drivers. It is part of the movement to shake and interfere with the status quo which the government is stubbornly trying to change without proper preparations.
While the jeepney strike does create inconvenience to make a statement, this does not mean that they are part of the CPP. Affiliating individuals and organizations due to similarities in ideology does not make them a part of the CPP. Also, the right to strike is enshrined in the Constitution.
What Sara Duterte is doing is a clear form of red-tagging and not a statement of fact.
WHY WE FACT-CHECKED THIS: Red-tagging is a human rights violation that impinges on the freedom of speech and the lives of individuals and groups being tagged. Vice-President Sara Duterte resorted to red-tagging instead of heeding the calls of the jeepney drivers which is an integral part of the Philippine transportation system.
#FactsFirstPH
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