NO BASIS

The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), through Presidential Communications Operations Office Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy, has again claimed without proof that Vice President Leni Robredo conspired with communist groups, this time to target the youth sector.

Badoy, in a press statement posted on the task force’s Facebook page on May 22, pinned the reelection of progressive group Kabataan Partylist in the May polls on Robredo.

Badoy has consistently red-tagged Robredo and the Makabayan bloc which includes the Kabataan Partylist.

Robredo has denied any allegiance to any communist group and belied claims that Communist Party of the Philippines founder Joma Sison is her adviser.

Sison has also refuted claims that he was advising the vice president.

Similar claims by Badoy and other government officials have been fact-checked by FactRakers.

Read the full story on FactRakers.

Related fact check

FactRakers is a Philippines-based fact-checking initiative of journalism majors at the University of the Philippines-Diliman working under the supervision of Associate Professor Yvonne T. Chua of the University of the Philippines’ Journalism Department. Associate Professor Ma. Diosa Labiste, also of the Journalism Department, serves as editorial consultant.

The name of the initiative, coined from the words “fact” and “raker,” is inspired by the term “muckrakers,” first used in the early 1900s by American president Theodore Roosevelt to express his annoyance at progressive, reform-minded journalists at the time.

factrakers.org