Repression and Impunity Revised

REPRESSION & IMPUNITY
Continuing Attacks on People’s Rights

in the Philippines
2019
Quezon City, Philippines
Repression and Impunity
Continuing Attacks on People’s Rights in the
Philippines
© IBON International 2019

Some Rights Reserved
IBON International holds the rights to this

publication. The publication may be cited in
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the Philippines.
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Editor: Jennifer del Rosario-Malonzo

Design & Layout: Ron Villegas
Cover credits:
The names of the Negros killings victims are derived
from a Rappler report (https://www.rappler.com/
newsbreak/iq/238672-map-negros-killings-since-
july-2016)
This document has been produced

with the financial contribution by the
Swedish International Development
Co-operation Agency (SIDA) through
the Swedish Society for Nature
Conservation (SSNC). The views herein
shall not necessarily be taken to reflect
Acknowledgements the official opinion of SSNC or its
IBON International is grateful to all those who donors.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction v
A creeping reign of repression, impunity in the Philippines 1

Rodolfo Lahoy Jr. & Renz Roc
From counting curses to counting corpses:

Duterte’s war vs. peasants 17
Arnold Padilla, Pesticide Action Network-Asia Pacific
Negros 14: New wave of peasant killings 33

People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS)
The Reincarnation of Marcos and

the Reinvention of Martial Law 43
Lyn Angelica Pano
Witnessing for rights and justice amid tyranny:

Church workers under attack in the era of
Oplan Tokhangand Kapayapaan 59
Ivan Phell Enrile
Cyber-censorship: Silencing the Philippine alternative media 65

Meg Yarcia
Lumad Schools: A Struggle for Land and Learning 71

Paul Belisario, International Indigenous Peoples’ Movement
for Self-Determination and Liberation
Termination of Peace under Duterte’s bloody regime 81

Jamaica Jian Gacoscosim and Danielle Templonuevo
iv
ANNEXES 91
UN human rights experts call for independent probe into
Philippines violations 93
Introduction of draft resolution L.20 by Iceland:

Promotion and protection of human rights in the Philippines 98
Tabled version of UNHRC resolution L.20 on promotion and

protection of human rights in the Philippines 100
Philippine Government Should Abide by the UNHRC

Resolution 103
Statement of International Coalition for Human Rights in the
Philippines
On the approval of the UNHRC resolution on the Philippine

rights situation 105
IBON International Statement
Letter to United Nations High Commissioner for Human

Rights (OHCHR) on escalated political killings in Negros
Oriental 106
INTRODUCTION
A whole spate of events has occurred since the preparations for this new
book, the third now in a series. The so-called “drug war” continues in
the urban areas, and has spread now in the rural areas under a police-
military Operation Plan Synchronized Enhanced Management of Police
Operations (SEMPO) dubbed as Oplan Sauron whose ‘laboratory’ has
been Negros province in the Visayas region. As a result, in Negros, there
are continuing killings of civilians, with children among victims, due to
increased military presence. This book’s cover design features the names of
some of these victims. Elsewhere, people’s initiatives, such as indigenous
people’s community schools, have been shut down in the name of “counter-
insurgency.”
Amid this and the continuing Martial Law in the whole of Mindanao
island, the government’s security apparatus has been threatening to justify
its intervention and presence in universities despite a ban since the 1970s.
They wish to amend for the worse an already repressive Human Security
Act, and even revive an “anti-subversion” law. The Defense Secretary has
said that human rights are just secondary to security objectives.
At this writing, the shifts in the political environment and rights situation
seem to be for the worse.The ongoing attacks against people’s civil, political,
as well as economic and social rights, are unfortunate testaments to a general
assertion of this volume’s case stories and analyses: that prolonged reign of
impunity has been driven by the ever-deteriorating elite-led state institutions
in the country. The first and second volumes chronicle the swelling cases of
killings and human rights abuses in the country and provide greater scrutiny
on Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s fascist and neoliberal economic policies as well
as the United States (US)-indoctrinated counterinsurgency program Oplan
Kapayapaan (now continued as Oplan Kapanatagan for 2018 to 2022, with
the same approach that militarises civilian agencies).
vi
This volume consists of articles and analyses on the worsening repression,

creeping fascist rule and impunity in the country; the continuing attacks on
farmers and their organisations, church workers, alternative media, Lumad
indigenous peoples, peace advocates and other sectors; the de facto Martial
Law in large parts of the country and different forms of repression; and the
dire prospects of just and lasting peace.
The worsening situation is again a matter of urgent international scrutiny,

with an Iceland-initiated resolution at the United Nations Human Rights
Council (UNHRC) to investigate rights violations in the Philippines. Close
allies of the administration have responded to displace public attention on
the pertinent issues, by focusing on making scapegoats out of progressive
youth organisations, alleging ridiculous claims of “kidnapping” student
activists. The people have already seen this tactic to divert public attention
– amid earlier attacks on prominent media personalities, alternative media,
and continued killings around the country – as the administration earlier
launched a “truth caravan” across Europe to blame the underground
communist party and, dangerously, label certain civil society organisations
(CSOs) as “communist fronts.”
The adoption of a UNHRC resolution towards greater scrutiny into the

Philippine rights situation is partly attributable to the efforts and resistance of
people’s movements, rights defenders and civil society, such as the Philippine
Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Watch. International campaigners such as
the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP)
also continue to spread the word about the realities on the ground. Amid
state denial regarding rights violations, people’s organisations will continue
to campaign for an actual investigation to proceed.
Movements’ campaigns today continue the long-drawn fight for justice, after
the efforts of different organisations and victims’ families to file numerous
complaints at the International Criminal Court for the deadly “drug war.”
These also come after the initiative of organisations and people’s lawyers,
Philippine-based and otherwise, to convene the International Peoples’
Tribunal on the Philippines last September 2018, which rendered a guilty
verdict on the US-backed Duterte administration.
This current volume would have achieved its objectives if it has managed to
inform the reader – from people’s organisations, civil society, parliamentarians
and state actors around the world – more concretely of the Philippine rights
situation, the persisting norm of impunity and deterioration of institutions
vii
of the ruling elite, as well as provide insight on how Philippine organisations

are steadfastly resisting the attacks.
While movements face a daunting challenge in the worsening rights

situation, they are among the last bastions that defend Philippine society
from the full capture of right-wing authoritarianism. It is certain that people’s
organisations and victims’ kin will continue to clamour for accountability
and the end to the reigning impunity, for social justice and the realization
of the whole scope of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights –
including the people’s right to development.
Amy Padilla
Director, IBON International
A CREEPING REIGN OF REPRESSION,
IMPUNITY IN THE PHILIPPINES
By Rodolfo Lahoy Jr. & Renz Roc
D ifferent domestic organisations as well as international actors continue

to voice concern about rights issues,1 as the Duterte administration
continues its term since being inaugurated in June 2016.2 Local critics of the
administration have come from various sides, from within government (from
rival catch-all political parties, to progressive partylists), to the underground
communist movement, and to the various people’s organisations and civil
society organisations in the country.
Aside from the so-called “war on drugs” that have killed thousands, and the
years-long military rule in the whole of Mindanao, increasingly alarming and
deserving of documentation are the administration’s moves against people’s
organisations and civil society actors. State actors gradually attempt to
justify repression of dissenters, in an emerging political climate of impunity
and the further erosion of the remains of government accountability. If
left unchecked, this could point towards another period of unabashed
authoritarianism of an elite-led state.
The so-called “biggest threat to national security”
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) marked its 50th founding
anniversary on December 26, 2018. The CPP—together with its New
People’s Army (NPA) and National Democratic Front of the Philippines
1 https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa35/0308/2019/en/
2 http://time.com/4388937/philippines-rodrigo-duterte-president-inauguration/
2 A creeping reign of repression, impunity in the Philippines
(NDFP)—remain undefeated as the longest-running communist revolution

in Asia, if not the world.3
In its anniversary statement, the CPP called to wage all-out resistance,

through continuing its war of long duration, against what it considers
President Rodrigo Duterte’s “fascist tyranny, corruption, and puppetry”. It
pointed that the worsening facets of the “semi-colonial and semi-feudal”
society, bred by Duterte and the administrations past, are “exceedingly
favourable revolutionary conditions” in the Philippines. It also boasted the
growing number of red fighters and supporters in the countryside, especially
in Mindanao, and attributed this growth to the NDFP and its network of
underground revolutionary organizations.4
Political analysts have argued elsewhere that the reasons for the half century-
long revolution, which the red fighters call “feudalism, bureaucrat capitalism
and imperialism” are “still here.”5
The sustained revolutionary struggles have continued to exasperate the

Duterte administration. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has
thus called the New People’s Army as the government’s “biggest” threat
to “national security” for now,6 but quick to call the 50th anniversary of
the CPP as an indicator of a so-called “failed rebellion”.7 In March 2019,
Duterte permanently terminated the peace talks between the government
and the NDFP.8 This put negotiations to an end and barred discussions on
reforms for socio-economic development, coordinated unilateral ceasefire,
and the amnesty of all political prisoners.9
Aggravating the tension, Duterte signed the Executive Order No. 70

three weeks prior the communists’ anniversary. This order necessitated the
formation of a National Task Force, headed by Duterte himself, overseeing
operations to “end communist armed conflict” in the country. It mandated
different government departments and agencies as well as representatives
from the private sector to make anti-communism a coherent, national policy
3 https://international.thenewslens.com/article/67077
4 https://www.philippinerevolution.info/2018/12/26/celebrate-the-partys-50th-anniversary-and-lead-
the-philippine-revolution-to-greater-victories/
5 https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1100648/no-end-in-sight-as-npa-marks-50th-year-of-insurgency
6 https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1100648/no-end-in-sight-as-npa-marks-50th-year-of-insurgency
7 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/12/27/1880201/50-years-cpp-npa-failed-rebellion
8 https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/21/19/duterte-announces-permanent-termination-of-peace-talks-
with-reds
9 https://www.philippinerevolution.info/statement/ndfp-panel-welcomes-house-resolution-1803-on-
resumption-of-peace-talks/
Repression & Impunity: Continuing Attacks on People’s Rights in the Philippines 3
-- a so-called ‘whole-of-nation’ approach towards achieving a government-

prescribed National Peace Framework.
State actors, particularly the military and the executive, have spared no
expense to equate armed,underground communist fighters with unarmed but
nonetheless dissenting civil society organisations and people’s organisations.
Attempts to this end come in the form of calling organisations around
the country as “communist fronts.” These dangerous and dubious “front”
accusations are not unprecedented in the country’s recent history.10 A 2008
report by Special Rapporteur Philip Alston described this practice, where
the military and senior officials under the Arroyo administration attempted
to “dismantle…numerous civil society organisations” and engaged in a
“public vilification of ‘enemies’”.11 These trends have again intensified in
the last years under the Duterte administration.
The ‘truth’ caravan
As a directive of the EO 70, members of the National Task Force carried out
an information campaign drive across Europe in February 2019. Described
as a “truth caravan,” members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
(AFP), the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), and
the Presidential Human Rights Committee (PHRC) went to Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Switzerland, and Belgium to “clarify issues hounding the
Duterte administration,” including involuntary disappearances and press
repression.12
The government-led “truth caravan” attempted to claim that first, there

are no threats to press freedom in the Philippines; second, that state
actors should be unburdened by the well-recorded history of enforced
disappearances and rights violations; and that it is rather the Philippine
communist party that should be condemned for rights violations (with the
corollary that funding must stop for what the government and the military
dangerously brand as “front” organisations). The caravan was done after the
same delegation filed a “complaint” at the United Nations office in Geneva
that accused various civil society organisations and people’s organisations as
“front organisations.”13
10 https://www.bulatlat.com/2010/01/03/in-2009-human-rights-took-serious-beating-from-arroyo-
regime/
11 https://www.karapatan.org/files/English_Alston_Report_Mission_to_the_Philippines_HRC8.pdf
12 https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1062239
13 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/02/24/1896303/npa-atrocities-cases-set-be-filed-un-body
Box 1: CSOs, rights defenders under threat, again

Among organizations that were “red-tagged” during the caravan is IBON
Foundation, a research institution that studies socio-economic concerns.
It also produces educational materials for children in local schools. Gen.
Parlade claims that the textbooks developed by IBON Foundation for
indigenous Lumad children in Mindanao instruct the learners to be
“radical.” The Foundation has raised evidence-based critiques of the
government’s anti-poor economic policy and practice, including the
regressive Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law, and has even
irked the Presidential Spokesperson for its analysis of low job creation
in the country.a b
For the General, Lumad schools supported by the Save Our Schools
network, a campaign network for the right to education of indigenous
Lumad children, have developed a curriculum that teaches indigenous
youth to rebel in support of the communist fighters. The Save Our
Schools Network and the various Lumad indigenous schools have
been vocal in rejecting corporate plunder and growing militarization in
southern Philippines, with the President himself once claiming that he will
pick foreign investors for the ancestral domains defended by the Lumad.c
Karapatan, a human rights alliance of individuals, groups, and

organizations, was also accused by Parlade to be a CPP-NPA “front” the
organization has time and again expressed alarm on the Philippine rights
situation, and has campaigned for rights defenders in the country.d Even
the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines was targeted by the military
rhetoric, which received condemnation from the Church group.e
a https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1077641/palace-ibons-data-on-unemployment-mathematically-
impossible
b https://www.ibon.org/2019/03/ibon-duterte-govts-accusations-baseless-aim-to-hide-truth-
about-economy/
c https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/02/07/1785480/dutertes-plan-use-lumads-ancestral-
lands-total-sell-out-group
d https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/ministry/rural-missionaries-philippines-denounces-
militarys-red-tagging-56085
e https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/ministry/rural-missionaries-philippines-denounces-
militarys-red-tagging-56085
Indeed, a press briefing14 held March 2019 by the PCOO explained that
one of the main goals of the caravan is the “exposition” [sic] of what it
calls communist fronts that the military claims are masquerading as non-
government organizations and human rights defenders to European funding
agencies. The same briefing alleged that rights organizations from the
country only “project wrong news” [“i-project ang mga maling balita”] to the
international community, and that the communist party has “infiltrate[d]
the UN.”
Shrinking spaces for civil society
Other measures were also enacted that threatens democratic spaces for civil
society organizations: in 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC) released its SEC Memorandum 15 to set guidelines for the supposed
protection of SEC-registered non-profit organizations in the Philippines
from “money laundering” and “terrorist-financing abuse.” Under this
memorandum, non-profit organizations are required to undergo a risk-
based assessment and subject their operational information to the discretion
of the SEC and Duterte’s Anti-Money Laundering Council.15
But under the memorandum, such as in Section 10.2, Chapter X, the

police and military would be allowed to intervene in non-governmental
organisations’ activities and operations, under the guise of “investigation”
and “intelligence gathering”.16
Civil society organisations based in the country have already raised concerns.
Karapatan argued that such a policy is especially dangerous in the current
rights situation in the country which, citing the UN Special Rapporteur on
Human Rights Defenders, features “very harmful rhetoric against human
rights defenders,” labelling them as ‘anti-nation,’ ‘protectors of drug lords,’
‘communists,’ ‘terrorists,’ among others.”17
14 https://pcoo.gov.ph/press-briefing/press-briefing-with-armed-forces-of-the-philippines-deputy-chief-
of-staff-for-civil-military-operations-brigadier-general-antonio-parlade-presidential-task-force-on-
media-security-undersecretary-joe/
15 http://www.sec.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018MCNo15.pdf
16 http://www.iboninternational.org/statement/on-latest-threats-democratic-spaces-philippine
17 https://hronlineph.com/2019/01/15/statement-new-sec-memo-on-non-profit-organizations-violates-
right-to-organize-karapatan/
Armchairs to armed conflict
The Duterte administration’s red-tagging have affected sectoral organizations

as well. The same Gen. Parlade had alleged several youth organizations to
be “fronts” of the communist party that recruit students from universities
to join the NPA. Among these are the mass organizations Anakbayan,
League of Filipino Students (LFS), Gabriela Youth, and Student Christian
Movement of the Philippines (SCMP).18
In a widely criticized move, the AFP alleged universities in Metro Manila

of being involved in what it calls a “Red October” plot to oust Duterte.
Supposedly orchestrated by the CPP, the military claimed that students
of at least 18 national private and public universities are “hotbeds” for
the communist party organization, with the General speculating that
“recruitment” is done through showing films about the Martial Law
under the former dictator Marcos.19 The public and private universities all
condemned the allegations over lack of evidence, and slammed the AFP
for red-tagging their students.20 One of the schools included in the list,
a certain Caloocan City College, was proven to be non-existent by the
Caloocan City Mayor.21
Cases of red-tagging are also experienced by members of the student

government in Bulacan State University; they were said to have been listed
in the Intelligence Service of the AFP by the administration and were given
death threats after the same allegations of “links” with the CPP-NPA.
Student activists were also harassed and intimidated from running in the
student council elections.22
The AFP has used the deaths and arrests to discourage students and other
youth especially in state universities from practicing their civil and political
right to join mass organizations. In November 2018, the UP Manila Office
of Student Affairs conducted a forum supposedly on Violence Against
Women, with the wife of Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief and a
military Major as resource speakers. However, the topic of VAW was barely
mentioned in the discussion—but rather revolved around propaganda
against mass organizations.23 In UP Los Baños, another state university,
18 https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1066104
19 http://nine.cnnphilippines.com/news/2018/10/03/Red-October-AFP-schools.html
20 https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/04/18/metro-manila-universities-slam-military-red-tagging
21 https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/04/18/caloocan-city-college-mayor-says-no-such-school
22 https://www.facebook.com/BulSUSGpage/posts/2240424862940085
23 https://www.facebook.com/UPMCASSC/photos/a.202554286514016/1468732303229535/
Box 2: The security apparatus and the militant youth

The smear campaign against youth organisations intensified following
the killings of former Gabriela Youth members Josephine Lapira of the
University of the Philippines (UP) Manila and Kamil Manangan of the
Polytechnic University of the Philippines, among 13 other casualties,
during a November 2017 government-NPA “clash” in Nasugbu, Batangas.a
Gabriela has called on the Commission on Human Rights to probe on the
clash, asserting that the slain women were actually ambushed. Photos of
Lapira’s corpse also disprove the AFP’s statement that the victims were
rushed to a nearby hospital before they passed away.b
Two members of the youth mass organization Anakbayan were also

victimized by Duterte’s drive against youth dissenters. In 2018, Myles
Albasin of UP Cebu, was arrested along with five others in Mabinay,
Negros Oriental after what the military claims is a 45-minute shoot-out
against government troops. Albasin and the other victims in the arrests,
collectively known as the Mabinay 6, were charged with illegal possession
of firearms and subversive documents. Albasin had denied this charge,
stating that she was in the community to investigate the plight of the
farmers. All six also tested negative for gunpowder residues.c d
a https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/regions/635032/up-manila-student-among-those-
killed-in-military-npa-clash-in-nasugbu/story/
b https://www.rappler.com/nation/190227-gabriela-probe-nasugbu-batangas-clash
c https://www.rappler.com/nation/198683-myles-albasin-mabinay-6-youth-activists-
government-targets
d https://opinion.inquirer.net/111669/defense-myles-albasin
elements of the AFP held a discussion to red-tag mass organizations in

the National Service Training Program classes. They showed photographs
of Congresswoman Sarah Elago of Kabataan Partylist, whose organization
represents the youth sector in the legislature’s lower house and is dubiously
tagged by the military rhetoric as another “front”.24
Other faces of the smear campaign included the use of the National
Youth Commission (NYC) and the Duterte-installed chairperson, Ronald
Cardema. He called for the revocation of state scholarships from “anti-
government” students, describing them as “allied with the leftist CPP-
24 https://www.facebook.com/UPLB.USC/posts/2266272273415710
NPA-NDF, a terrorist group that is trying to overthrow the Philippine

government.” This has prompted youth groups and student formations to
call for his resignation from chairpersonship in both the NYC and his
partylist group, Duterte Youth.25
“A for arms, B for bullets”
Other than the use of different institutions against students’ dissent, the
security apparatus under Duterte’s command have also targeted teachers
accused of teaching “subversive” lessons to children and the youth.
This attack is particularly explicit in Lumad schools in Mindanao: as

mentioned, volunteer teachers affiliated with the Save Our Schools Network
were dubiously accused to be teaching communist ideology using lesson
plans and instructional materials developed by IBON Foundation, among
others. Parlade insisted that the Lumad children were taught by volunteer
teachers to assemble rifles in preparation for their training as combatants of
the NPA.
The SOS Network has denied these allegations, stating that the Duterte
administration and the AFP are adamant in discrediting Lumad schools and
red-tagging their organizers and teachers in order to bring the rampant
militarization in the countryside to a good light. The network mentioned
that since the imposition of Martial Law in Mindanao, 85 Lumad schools
have been closed, and as many as 3,000 students in different indigenous
communities have been affected.
Cracking down on unionists
Workers have also faced the crosshairs of the administration and its security
apparatus, such as the trade union centre Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU, May
First Labour Movement). Its labour organiser have been arrested on dubious
charges.26 In late April and May 2019, KMU received the ire of the national
police chief, saying that collective workers’ actions are the ones “driving
investors away,” after the labour centre criticized the “anti-worker” Duterte
25 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/02/22/1895865/national-youth-commission-chair-ronald-
cardema-i-wont-quit-or-apologize
26 https://www.bulatlat.com/2019/02/25/intl-community-calls-for-the-release-of-filipino-trade-
unionist/
administration.27 The police chief later baited KMU to “prove” that they are
“not a communist front,”28 placing the burden of evidence on the unionists.
According to the International Trade Union Confederation, the Philippines

is among the ten worst countries for workers, citing cases of mass layoffs,
state intimidation through the police, and union-busting through military
forces’ breaking up of picket lines.29
Duterte himself has earlier parroted the same “front” organization

narrative which, for KMU unionists in southern Philippines, has resulted
to intensified violence. This includes the case of union leader Victor
Ageas, who experienced death threats from suspected intelligence agents,
to outright attempts against his life as among the leaders of Nagkahiusang
Mamumuo sa Suyapa Farm, the KMU-affiliated union at a banana plantation
of the Japanese multinational Sumitomo Fruit (Sumifru) Corporation.30
Unionised teachers have also experienced state surveillance. A January

2019 memorandum circulated by the national police instructed public and
private schools to release a list of their teaching and non-teaching personnel
affiliated with the teachers’ union Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT)
and its representative in the Congress, ACT Partylist. The surveillance and
profiling operations, which frustrated the national police chief for leaking
to the public,31 are believed to be of a nationwide scale as similar reports
had surfaced from ACT members in Metro Manila and other regions across
the country.32 PNP Chief Albayalde also threatened to revoke the licenses
of ACT-affiliated teachers if they were proven to “support rebellion”.33 The
Court of Appeals had also rejected ACT’s petition to deem the memorandum
unconstitutional.34
ACT Partylist Representative France Castro had pointed to these attacks

to teachers as mere “scare tactics” by the administration against legitimate
organizations that advance the rights of its members in the education sector.
27 https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/692768/kmu-to-albayalde-gov-rsquo-t-
subservience-to-foreign-powers-causes-unemployment-not-rallies/story/
28 https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/national/albayalde-to-kmu-prove-youre-not-communist-front/
ar-AAAO7Rr
29 https://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ituc-global-rights-index-2018-en-final-2.pdf
30 http://davaotoday.com/main/politics/dutertes-red-tagging-intensifies-attacks-vs-labor-union-workers-
kmu/
31 https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1070406/pnp-confirms-intel-operation-vs-act-teachers
32 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/01/06/1882781/act-police-hands-our-teachers
33 https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1091783/pnp-chief-warns-act-teachers-of-revocation-of-license
34 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/02/08/1891888/court-appeals-junks-act-petition-vs-pnp-
profiling
She added that ACT is the largest, non-traditional organization of academic

and non-academic personnel in the country, and emphasized further that as
a trade union, it has a historical track record of militancy.35
Castro herself has seen Duterte’s repressive attacks to teachers. In November

2018, she faced false charges alongside former Bayan Muna Representative
Satur Ocampo and 70 others in Talaingod, Davao del Norte and for
“kidnapping and trafficking minors.” Salugpongan Ta’TanuIgkanogon
Community Learning Center, a Lumad school, refuted that allegation,
saying that Castro and company were merely conducting a humanitarian
mission to evacuate children from the community after military forces
enforced a food blockade in the area.36
Guilty or not guilty?
In what could be interpreted as a move to evade accountability, Duterte has

also set his eyes against lawyers expressing dissent against his administration,
accusing them of being involved with a destabilization plot to overthrow
him from presidency. These are aside from the case of former Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court Maria Lourdes Sereno in mid-2018, who was ousted37
through a quo warranto petition38 and not the constitutional method of an
impeachment trial.
A matrix received from “a high-placed source in the Office of the President”

by local newspaper The Manila Times identified different actors in an alleged
“ouster plot” against the administration. These actors include the media
agencies Rappler,Vera Files, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism,
and the “leftist group” National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL).39
A statement by Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo confirmed this

matrix and threatened to prosecute those implicated.40 However, all groups
denied the allegation, with the NUPL saying that “[the matrix] has certainly
gone over the walls of credulity. It is absolutely false, totally baseless and
35 https://www.facebook.com/ACTteachers/photos/a.176924669042969/2043709522364465/
36 https://www.rappler.com/nation/217803-satur-ocampo-france-castro-arrested-november-2018\
37 https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/652911/law-faculties-let-sereno-impeachment-
trial-begin-quo-warranto-petition-unconstitutional/story/
38 https://www.ateneo.edu/sites/default/files/attached-files/Quo%20Warranto%20Decision.pdf
39 https://www.manilatimes.net/oust-duterte-plot-bared/543609/
40 https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/22/19/malacaang-claims-journalists-lawyers-behind-oust-
duterte-plot
completely ludicrous.”41 Panelo soon redacted his statement and said that
the matrix was unverified and came from an “unknown” source.42 The
official narrative peddled by the Spokesperson was further discredited as a
managing editor of The Manila Times resigned over the publication of the
story.43
The NUPL is among Duterte’s most staunch critics, having condemned the
president’s “drug war” operations, Oplan Tokhang as early as 2016. In August
2018, it filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC), calling
for Duterte’s indictment for thousands of extrajudicial killings under his
administration.44 The ICC in turn has begun its preliminary examination in
April 2019 and promised an expeditious analysis on the president’s crimes
against humanity.45 This is in spite of Duterte’s withdrawal of the Philippines
from the ICC and the Rome Statute in 2018 after the president stated that
the ICC does not have jurisdiction over him and his affairs.46
In May 2019, the Presidential Spokesperson bared another “ouster matrix;”

it was deemed by another accused organization, the National Union of
Journalists of the Philippines, as “a piece of unadulterated crap” [sic].47
Among the graver instances of state repression against lawyers is the

November 2018 killing of Benjamin Ramos, an NUPL founding member
and the lawyer representing the Mabinay 6. According to reports, he
was shot four times by assailants riding a motorcycle near his home in
Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental. Ramos was a pro-bono human rights
lawyer for political prisoners, environmentalists, and peasants.48 He is one of
the 35 lawyers who have been murdered under Duterte’s regime.49
41 https://www.facebook.com/nuplphilippines/photos/a.10151953699388683/10156392875683683/
42 ttps://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1112982/panelo-admits-copy-of-oust-duterte-matrix-came-from-
unknown-number
43 https://www.rappler.com/nation/228942-manila-times-editor-resigns-over-duterte-ouster-plot-
matrix-story
44 https://www.rappler.com/nation/210550-families-war-on-drugs-victims-new-complaint-
international-criminal-court-vs-duterte
45 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/04/06/1907689/icc-begins-examination-nupl-case-vs-
duterte
46 https://www.rappler.com/nation/198171-full-text-philippines-rodrigo-duterte-statement-
international-criminal-court-withdrawal
47 https://kodao.org/nujp-malacanangs-new-matrix-a-badly-concocted-fiction/
48 https://www.rappler.com/nation/216091-human-rights-lawyer-benjamin-ramos-shot-dead-
november-6-2018
49 https://iadllaw.org/2019/01/nupl-day-of-the-endangered-lawyer/
A reign of impunity, unaccountability
The above cases of attacks against minimum civil and political rights, from
attempts at discrediting legal organisations, to harassment and outright
killings, are testament to the worsening situation for people’s organisations
and civil society in the country. Moreover, they all contribute to worsening
impunity, with different institutions functioning to protect the Commander-
in-Chief, and against people’s rights.
State actors’ troubling attitude towards youth dissent, with its “red-
tagging” attempts in universities, saw the military use of supposedly public
educational institutions and spaces to discourage exercise of the right to
organise. Even a supposedly civilian office such as the National Youth
Commission has been used to propagate this notion. Generals’ public “red-
tagging” attempts against the youth are also dangerous given the country’s
recent history. More than a decade ago, amid another spate of “red-tagging”
of youth activists, Gen. Jovito Palparan kidnapped, detained, and believed
to have tortured at least two university students.50 He managed to escape
the country’s justice system for years before being convicted in late 2018.
His conviction, however, is just one in the various unresolved cases of
involuntary disappearances and killings of activists in the country.
The government’s “truth” caravan in Europe earlier this year was a new
effort of the Philippine government to wash its hands from accountability
and its notorious international reputation as a violator of press freedom
and civil, political and economic rights today. If anything, the government
reinforces the already problematic justice system in the country by further
promoting impunity as the norm.
As it deodorizes its violations as a state supposedly bound to international

rights commitments, it displaces blame to the underground communist
party and the Maoist fighters who are waging a longstanding war against
the elite-led Philippine state and to different people’s organisations and civil
society groups tagged as “fronts”. The ground for the vilification of civil
society organisations is also fertile with the recent SEC memo that could
allow police and military intervention in civil society operations – against
Philippine-based groups active in supporting assertions of civil, political,
social and economic rights of the Filipino people.
50 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/jovito-butcher-palparan-sentenced-kidnapping-
students-180917063431037.html
Unionised workers and teachers have faced threats to their right to organize,
sending the message that the working classes and educators must remain
passive amid ongoing threats to people’s rights in different parts of the
country. The Presidential Spokesperson’s unfounded matrix of accusations
against the people’s lawyers, serves the same function to the legal profession,
and as a warning against those who might follow the NUPL in using
existing national and international law to seek accountability from the
current administration.
These cases point to a trend of impunity, of state actors attempting to remain

scot-free while also countering growing voices of dissent and concern amid
the political, economic and rights context. These constitute an alarming
trend -- that the current administration cracks down on voices even from
dissenting youth; that it does not tolerate dissenting lawyers, others from
the legal profession, from civil society and from the assertive workers; that
to even recover from its discredited international reputation it needs the
doublespeak of a “truth caravan”.
Compared to the past administrations, the country changed only to remain

the same: changed in terms of worsening rights and economic situation
but in the fundamentally same elite capture of institutions and the same
predominance of neoliberal policy norms.
Worse, if people’s organisations themselves create their own alternatives to

assert their rights, these would also be repressed. The state’s moves against
Lumad indigenous peoples’ schools in southern Philippines show that the
independent initiative of Lumad organisations to take back their right to
education through their own educational institutions, apt for communities’
needs, are touted as subversive. Not only is the government allergic to
resistance, it is also attacking people’s alternatives that address the social
services gaps that the state historically neglected.
Thus for Liza Maza, the spokesperson of the Council for People’s
Development and Governance and former lead convenor of the National
Anti-Poverty Commission, the current waves of harassment and attacks
serve “political and economic interests [that] wish to veer attention away
from legitimate concerns on rights violations and development problems
in the country.”51
51 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/04/03/1906984/communist-front-tags-ngos-shrink-
democratic-spaces-group
What emerges is an administration that, in its effort to repress criticism

from different sectors, is willing to equate civil society and people’s
organisations with long-time targets of military force. An administration
that, in its desperation to project successes on its campaign against the half-
century underground communist party, is willing to step on the rights of
people’s organisations and civil society -- instead of addressing the social
and economic roots of a 50-year history of workers, farmers, and other
marginalized sectors picking up arms against an elite-led state.
The people’s response – and verdict
The concerned organisations and individuals responded to oppose the

increasing harassment. Shortly after the PCOO’s press briefing with the
AFP, the red-tagged organizations Karapatan, RMP, and IBON Foundation,
including Kabataan Partylist, filed formal complaints against Duterte’s
terrorist-labelling to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR). As
with other organisations, IBON International has also filed a request for
investigation to the CHR and the Department of Justice, with a view of
ending the state-sponsored accusations.
“In continuing our human rights advocacy, we are exhausting all platforms
for redress of grievances. This CHR complaint [is] part of the measures we
are undertaking to end these attacks, to exact accountability and to protect
our courageous human rights advocates on the ground,” said Karapatan
Deputy Secretary General Roneo Clamor.52
The NUPL has similarly approached the Supreme Court to ask for
protection against threats from the state.They encouraged the high court to
issue a writ of amparo and a writ of habeas data to safeguard their members
from security violations by public officials, as well as a temporary protection
order.53
“Lawyering is not terrorism. The cause of the client and the case we are
handling should not be associated with us,” NUPL President Edre Olalia
explained to reporters after filing the petition.54
52 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/03/12/1900864/groups-file-complaints-chr-over-
incidents-red-tagging
53
54 https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/15/19/lawyering-is-not-terrorism-nupl-members-seek-supreme-
court-protection
Youth and student organizations have likewise remained persistent in their

condemnation of Duterte’s repressive actions to their sector. They have
protested against the red-tagging of student leaders55 56 that have led to their
receipt of death threats from anonymous people. They have also mobilized
against the AFP’s sentencing of mass organizations as CPP-NPA-NDF
fronts and asserted their right to organize for the advancement of their
rights as students.57
In response to the profiling of teachers affiliated with ACT, the alliance

held a protest to urge the Department of Education to take action in their
defence. Carrying the call “hands off our teachers,” the group stood firm
that they were teachers and not terrorists as the PNP had suspected.58
The teachers’ movement against repression has gained recognition from
the international community: Representative France Castro was awarded
the 2019 Arthur Svensson International Prize for Trade Union Rights for
serving as “a symbol for democracy and workers’ rights in [the Philippines]”
in light of her arrest in Talaingod.59 The Kilusang Mayo Uno continues to
work for the self-organisation of labour in the Philippines, and continues
to confront the administration on its failure to end all forms of contractual
labour and other threats to workers’ rights and sovereignty.
Different people’s organisations themselves were able to raise concerns at the

International People’s Tribunal (IPT) on the Philippines, held in September
2018. In an 84-page decision, the people’s tribunal handed down a guilty
verdict to Duterte for his crimes against the Filipino people. The IPT
indicted Duterte and current United States (US) President Donald Trump,
as US state actors continue to enable “it [the Philippine government] to
commit war crimes and crimes against humanity against its own people and
deny them [the Filipinos] their legal right to self-determination.”60
Convened by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the

European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights,
the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, IBON International and
the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, and
representatives from different sectors from the Philippines shared their
55 https://www.facebook.com/kabataan/photos/a.10153510415100557/10161223729755557/
56 https://www.facebook.com/NUSPhilippines/photos/a.10153187335169789/10157318796494789/
57 https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/110228-military-agents-up-diliman
58 https://www.rappler.com/nation/220447-act-tells-pnp-deped-teachers-not-terrorists
59 https://www.ei-ie.org/en/detail/16229/philippines-top-human-rights-award-goes-to-education-leade
60 https://truthout.org/articles/tribunal-declares-trump-and-duterte-guilty-of-crimes-against-humanity/
narratives of human rights violations for the Tribunal to reach such

decision.61
“[The IPT’s] biggest value is its strong moral persuasion and political push
that would complement the overall efforts from all sources in the ultimate
search for justice,” shared Olalia of NUPL, who served as the Clerk of
Court in the tribunal. The verdict and decision are set to be forwarded
to ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to assist the Court in its preliminary
examinations,62 and has been forwarded to various governments and
international organisations.
These show people’s organisations and civil society organisations moving

to counter the repression, and the creeping erosion of institutional spaces,
and to demand accountability. But as they do this, people’s organisations
also continue to work for genuinely addressing the long-standing obstacles
to development and the fulfilment of people’s rights in the country, by
defending the need for the full scope of civil, political, economic and social
rights of the people, and asserting the primacy of people’s sovereignty
towards ownership of economic and political life in the country.
61 https://iadllaw.org/2018/09/international-peoples-tribunal-on-the-philippines-issues-verdict-on-
duterte-and-trump/
62 https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/212409-explanation-belgium-peoples-tribunal-guilty-
verdict-duterte-crimes-against-humanity
FROM COUNTING CURSES TO COUNTING
CORPSES: DUTERTE’S WAR VS. PEASANTS
By Arnold Padilla, Pesticide Action Network-Asia Pacific
L ike any authoritarian populist worth his salt, Philippine President

Rodrigo Duterte earned global notoriety for his virulent rhetoric. Cuss
words and death threats are par for the course of every presidential speech.
He readily declares war against anyone or anything that is the current subject
of his ire, or irritation.
There was a time when Duterte’s irreverence was just amusing. Duterte,
after all, is a populist leader. But three years into his presidency, Filipinos have
moved on from counting curses to counting corpses. Extrajudicial killings
(EJKs) on account of his drug war and counterinsurgency are mounting.
His Martial Law in Mindanao is now two years old and counting. Duterte,
above all, is an authoritarian leader.
That combination of populism and authoritarianism is always a deadly mix.

More so in a society like the Philippines where impunity has long reigned.
And even more so in its rural areas where poverty and backwardness are
most extreme.
Consider this Duterte speech in October 2018 as quoted in media reports:

“My orders to the police and the soldiers, shoot them. If they resist violently, shoot
them. If they die, I do not care.” Duterte was warning the landless farmers who
were occupying undistributed and idle farmlands in the country.
A week before his speech, nine farm workers who were part of an organized
land occupation campaign were massacred in a sugar plantation in central
Philippines. Their lawyer was assassinated weeks later.
18 From counting curses to counting corpses: Duterte’s war vs. peasants
Indeed, rural Filipinos are the worst victims of an ever-deteriorating

human rights situation under the authoritarian populist regime of Duterte.
EJK victims documented by local human rights groups show that an
overwhelming majority of cases involves peasants and indigenous people.
The Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights reported

that as of end-2018, there were 222 victims of politically motivated EJKs
since Duterte took over in mid-2016; 180 of the victims were from the
peasant sector.
The Philippines, in fact, is the deadliest country in the region for rural
peoples and their supporters, based on PANAP’s own monitoring.
Broken and failed system
The rise of mostly far-right populist leaders like Duterte is a global

phenomenon. It is the same trend that saw Donald Trump march to the
US White House in January 2017. It is the same phenomenon that saw
Jair Bolsonaro clinch electoral victory in Brazil in October 2018, and Joko
Widodo of apparent reelection in Indonesia in April 2019.
People turn to populist leaders because of the widespread sentiment that

the system is broken and has failed them. Populism harnesses and rides on
this legitimate public sentiment. In the past four decades, the broken and
failed system took the form of neoliberal globalization.
While it promised prosperity for everyone,neoliberal policies of liberalization,

deregulation, privatization and denationalization destroyed more jobs and
livelihoods than they ever created. They reduced state spending for social
services and welfare even as greater public burden is imposed through more
taxes. They pushed up overall costs of living amid depressed wages and
household incomes.
For rural communities, neoliberalism meant the massive destruction of

agriculture and environment, and land and resource grabbing.
As the plight of a great majority worsens under neoliberalism, a few rich

and powerful amass unprecedented wealth and power. According to the
2018 World Inequality Report, since 1980, the richest 1% of the global
population captured twice as much of the growth in global income as the
poorest 50 percent.This trend coincided with decades of very large transfers

of public to private wealth in rich and poor countries alike. It eroded the
capacity of governments to regulate the economy, redistribute income, and
mitigate rising inequality.
With virulent tones, right-wing populist leaders claim to be the voice of

public sentiment against the social costs of neoliberalism and exclusion of
ordinary people. In underdeveloped countries, they rally public support
around issues of bureaucratic corruption, abuses of the local oligarchy and
the elite, and criminality.
The paradox is that these populist leaders are the beneficiaries of the status
quo and represent or come from the same political and economic elite
that profit from neoliberal globalization, systemic corruption and organized
crimes.
Still, these politicians peddle the idea that they and only they represent the
true will of the people. Those that do not support them or question their
policies are conveniently branded as public enemies, as part of the corrupt
elite (e.g., critical media), as insurgents (e.g., activist groups), etc. Behind
the pretext of advancing the people’s interests, right wing populist leaders
turn to authoritarianism and further undermine the already restricted space
provided by liberal democracy.
Authoritarian populists exercise a stranglehold on institutions such as the

legislature, judiciary, and armed forces. They use them with impunity to
attack individual and collective rights and freedoms, specifically targeting
political opponents and their mass of supporters.
The rise of authoritarian populism has a profound impact on rural

communities asserting their legitimate claim to land and resources as a
matter of people’s rights and social justice such as in the Philippines where
peasant landlessness remains the underlying reason for massive poverty and
backwardness.
Faced with intensifying threats of physical, economic, and cultural

displacement due to government and/or corporate takeover of their lands
for mining operations, plantations, tourism, infrastructure development, etc.,
communities of Filipino farmers and indigenous peoples are compelled to
defend their rights.
Table 1. Top 5 regions in the Philippines with highest land acquisition

and distribution balance under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Program (CARP), as of end-2016 (in hectares)
REGION BALANCE SCOPE ACCOMPLISHMENT (%)
1. Negros Island 125,279 427,656 70.7
Region
2. ARMM 111,149 332,773 66.6
3. Bicol Region 86,471 413,545 79.1
4. Soccsksargen 44,325 731,098 93.9
5. Cagayan Valley 44,178 417,740 89.4
Other regions 190,904 3,102,532 93.8
Total Philippines 602,306 5,425,344 88.9
Source: Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)
This is aggravated by the apparent failure of decades of land reform

implemented by successive Philippine governments. Latest available data
from the country’s agrarian reform department indicate that after more than
30 years of implementation, over 600,000 hectares remain undistributed as
of end-2016.
Among those with the lowest levels of accomplishment rates are not quite
by accident also among the most restive regions in the country such as
Negros Island Region and Bicol Region in central Philippines; and
the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in southern
Philippines. (See Table 1)
ARMM and the rest of Mindanao have been under Martial Law since May
2017; Negros and Bicol regions, along with the Samar region, have been
placed under what local activists refer to as a “de facto Martial Law” (i.e.,
reinforced state of national emergency) through Duterte’s Memorandum
No. 32 (22 Nov 2018) that deployed more combat troops in the said regions.
Displaying little tolerance to opposition, peasant resistance to land grabs

and assertion of land rights are conveniently branded by the Duterte
government, as authoritarian regimes are wont to do, as an “insurgency”
of a small group of people; is inconsistent with the will of a supposedly
overwhelming majority (which populist regimes claim to represent); and
purportedly contrary to national development.
This creates an environment of impunity in the rural areas for local and
foreign corporations, landlords and warlords (including local politicians),
state forces, and paramilitaries and private armies at the great expense of the
human rights of affected communities.
It is within this context that we can explain the repression – including the
alarming rate of peasant killings – that many rural Filipinos suffer under
Duterte.
Deadliest place for farmers
As of yearend 2018, Karapatan reported that there were 180 people from
the peasant sector who were victims of EJKs since Duterte took over in July
2016. The number comprised the overwhelming majority of EJK victims
Karapatan monitored during the period. It means that at least one Filipino
farmer is killed every week under Duterte. The peasant sector is followed
by sectors also mostly based in rural areas, i.e., indigenous people, Moro
(Muslim Filipinos) and environmental activists. (See Chart 1)
Counting the new EJK cases recorded in the first four months of 2019,
there is now a total of 205 farmers killed since Duterte became President,
according to Karapatan. The recent cases of political killings include
simultaneous summary executions (see discussion in the next section) and
targeted assassinations of peasant leaders and local government officials

supportive of peasant rights and struggles in regions covered by the
presidential Memorandum No. 32.
In Escalante City, Negros Occidental province, city councilor and human

rights worker Bernardino “Toto” Patigas was gunned down by unknown
assailants on 22 April 2019. Patigas was a survivor of the 1985 Escalante
massacre that killed 20 farmers and farmworkers.
On 25 April, Wilmar Calutan, village chief of Barangay Beri in Calbiga,

Samar province was shot inside his house by alleged elements of the military.
On the same day, another village chief, Pining Lebico of Barangay San
Miguel in Las Navas, Northern Samar was also shot dead by unidentified
killers near a military camp. Lebico was actively campaigning for the pullout
of military troops deployed in their area.
On 6 May, in Barangay Tagab-iran still in Las Navas, soldiers reportedly shot

and killed farmer Melvin Obiado Cabe, and seriously wounded his child.
Meanwhile, based on PANAP’s monitoring of reported human rights

violations related to land conflicts and struggles in various countries, the
Philippines is overwhelmingly the deadliest place for peasants. Compiling
available online reports, we listed 93 cases of such killings in the country,
with 135 victims from January 2017 to April 2019. That’s a rate of one
killing a week.
The Philippine’s total case is also more than half of the total number of
monitored cases (178) and almost half of the total number of victims (278).
Breaking down per sector, farmers and farmworkers accounted for 90 or
67% of the total number of victims in the Philippines. There were also 25
indigenous people and 20 land activists killed during the same period. (See
Table 2)
Aside from killings, PANAP also monitored cases of arrests, detention

and legal or judicial persecution that victimized 190 people. Of the said
number, 87 or 46% were farmers and farmworkers. They were followed by
land activists with 65 victims and indigenous people with 33. Lastly, there
were 44 victims as well of threats, harassment and physical assault of whom
19 were farmers and farmworkers; 15 indigenous people; and seven land
activists. (See Table 3)
Table 2. Monitored number of cases and victims of killings related to

land conflicts and struggles, By country and sector, January 2017 to
April 2019
VICTIMS
LAND ACTIVISTS
FARMWORKERS
INDIGENOUS
UNSPECIFIED
FARMERS,
PEOPLE
TOTAL
COUNTRY CASES
Argentina 1 1 0 0 1
Brazil 14 1 25 7 0 33
Cambodia 2 1 3 0 0 4
Chile 1 1 0 0 0 1
Colombia 19 10 1 10 2 23
Costa Rica 1 1 0 0 0 1
Guatemala 12 7 0 6 0 13
Honduras 2 0 0 2 0 2
India 5 2 13 6 0 21
Indonesia 1 1 0 0 0 1
Kenya 2 1 1 0 0 2
Mexico 11 9 0 8 0 17
Myanmar 3 0 0 3 0 3
Palestine 1 0 1 0 0 1
Peru 4 2 6 0 0 8
Philippines 93 25 90 20 0 135
Tanzania 1 0 0 1 0 1
Turkey 1 0 0 2 0 2
Uganda 1 0 3 0 0 3
Venezuela 3 1 3 2 0 6
TOTAL 178 63 146 67 2 278
Compiled by PANAP based on monitoring of online news and reports from partners
Table 3. Monitored number of victims of human rights violations

related to land conflicts and struggles in the Philippines, By violation
and sector, January 2017 to April 2019
ARRESTS / THREATS/
DETENTION HARASSMENT/
SECTOR KILLINGS
/ LEGAL PHYSICAL
PERSECUTION ASSAULT
Indigenous people 25 33 15
Farmers, 90 87 19
farmworkers
Land activists 20 65 7
Unspecified 0 5 3
TOTAL 135 190 44
Compiled by PANAP based on monitoring of online news and reports from partners
Many of the cases of killings happened in the context of government

operations, either as part of the military’s counterinsurgency campaign or
police operations purportedly against illegal drugs and firearms.
Based on online reports that PANAP culled, Philippine state forces (military
and paramilitary groups) were involved in half of the cases of killings, i.e.,
45 out of the total 93 cases; and more than half of the victims, i.e., 74 out
of 135 victims. Figures showing involvement of state forces could still go
higher as a significant number of cases (44) and victims (46) were reported
with unknown perpetrators. Private security personnel were involved in
four cases of killings with 15 victims.
Mass killings and arrests
A feature of the rapidly intensifying repression that rural communities

endure under the Duterte administration is the string of ruthless mass
killings as well as mass arrests of peasants and peasant rights advocates based
on blatantly spurious charges.
According to Karapatan’s monitoring, there were 14 incidents of massacre

between July 2016 and December 2018, eight of which happened last year.
Counting the most recent – the Negros 14 summary executions – will
bring the total to 15 incidents. Most of the victims were farmers and farm
workers and were killed by state forces carrying out counterinsurgency
military operations and/or police anti-criminality operations.
Table 4. Summary of incidents of rural mass killings under the Duterte

administration since 2018
ALLEGED
INCIDENT DATE PLACE VICTIMS
PERPETRATORS
Siaton 22 Feb Sitio Bondo, 4 sugarcane Paramilitary group that
massacre 2018 Barangay farmers killed, also serves as private
Napacao including security of a hacienda
in Siaton, three women, estate in Napacao
Negros aged 36 to
Oriental 66; 1 farmer
wounded
Payak 10 Apr Sona 6, 3 civilians Soldiers from the 83rd
massacre 2018 Barangay killed, aged Infantry Battalion of the
Payak 25 to 47 (as Philippine Army (IBPA);
in Bato, confirmed by claimed there was a
Camarines the military) gunfight with the New
Sur People’s Army (NPA)
Ragay 13 May Barangay 3 copra Soldiers from the 96th
massacre 2018 Patalunan workers killed, IBPA; claimed there was
in Ragay, aged 19 to an encounter with the
Camarines 30 who went NPA
Sur missing since
13 May and
were found
only on 22
June
MILF 25 May Sitio Biao, 3 persons Police from the SWAT
massacre 2018 Barangay killed including (Special Weapons and
Kibala, an alleged Tactics) and soldiers from
Kasan in member of the the 7th IBPA; claimed
Matalam, Moro Islamic they were serving a
North Liberation search warrant when the
Cotabato Front (MILF) victims opened fire
and his 2 sons
aged 16 and 25
Patikul 14 Sep Barangay 7 farmers Scout Rangers from
massacre 2018 Tambang in killed, aged 16 the 32nd IBPA; claimed
Patikul, Sulu to 30 victims were members of
the terrorist Abu Sayyaf
Group (ASG), which the
families and community
denied
Table 4. Summary of incidents of rural mass killings under the Duterte

administration since 2018
ALLEGED
PERPETRATORS
Sagay 20 Oct Hacienda 9 sugarcane Unidentified assailants,
massacre 2018 Nene, workers and but there are strong
Purok members of indications that they
Pine Tree, the National were from the private
Barangay Federation of army connected to the
Bulanon in Sugar Workers owners of the hacienda
Sagay City, (NFSW) and the victims occupied and
Negros 2 minors cultivated as part of a
Occidental killed; 3 were campaign asserting right
wounded; on 7 to land
Nov, a lawyer
for the victims
was also
gunned down
Negros 6 27 Dec Guihulngan 6 people Combined forces from
2018 City and killed; arrested the Philippine National
towns of 26 others; Police’s (PNP) Regional
Mabinay and most of the Mobile Safety Battalion
Sta. Catalina victims were and the military’s 94th
in Negros members of IBPA, 62nd IBPA and
Oriental local chapter 303rd Brigade; they
of Peasant were implementing the
Movement of Simultaneous Enhanced
the Philippines Managing of Police
(KMP) as well Operations (SEMPO) to
as transport serve search warrants
group PISTON for illegal firearms; they
claimed that the victims
fought back
Negros 14 30 Mar Canlaon 14 farmers Combined forces
2019 City and killed; 15 from the PNP and the
towns of arrested Armed Forces of the
Manjuyod Philippines (AFP); they
and Sta. were implementing
Catalina SEMPO part 2 or Oplan
in Negros Sauron; they claimed that
Oriental the victims were NPA
members who engaged
state forces in shootouts
Source: Karapatan
Table 5. Summary of incidents of mass arrests of peasants and peasant

rights advocates under the Duterte administration since 2018
ALLEGED
PERPETRATORS
Ilagan 5 18 Feb Barangay Old 5 farmers Arrested by the 86th
2018 San Mariano aged 21 to 65 IBPA for alleged illegal
in Ilagan City, possession of firearms and
Isabela explosives
Mabinay 6 3 Mar Sitio 6 youth- Arrested by the 62nd IBPA
2018 Tumonon, peasant for illegal possession of
Barangay organizers firearms and explosives
Luyang in from KMP
Mabinay,
Negros
Oriental
GenSan 13 4 Jul General 13 people Arrested by the National
2018 Santos City including Intelligence Coordinating
in South peasant Agency (NICA) and the
Cotabato organizers 102nd Brigade of the
and local Philippine Army; 11 were
peasant eventually released the
leaders following, while 2 remained
detained for alleged
murder and multiple
murder cases
SIDLAK 3 5 Oct Sitio Poog, 3 leaders of Arrested by soldiers from
2018 Maitom in the Lumad the 36th IBPA; SIDLAK
Tandag City, organization is actively opposing the
Surigao del SIDLAK entry of mining and logging
Sur operations in the Manobo
ancestral land
Nueva 14 Oct Rizal, Nueva 4 women Arrested by the Criminal
Ecija 4 2018 Ecija peasant Investigation and
advocates Detection Group (CIDG),
aged 20 to 46 7th IBPA and local police;
they claimed that the
women were armed rebels
Table 5. Summary of incidents of mass arrests of peasants and peasant

rights advocates under the Duterte administration since 2018
ALLEGED
PERPETRATORS
Negros 27 Dec Guihulngan 41 people Arrested by combined
Oriental 2018 City, towns (26 arrested forces of the PNP and
arrests and 30 of Mabinay on 27 Dec AFP as part of the
Mar and Sta. and 15 on 30 SEMPO/Oplan Sauron;
2019 Catalina (27 Mar), mostly they claimed victims
Dec) and farmers and were arrested for illegal
Canlaon City members of possession of firearms and
and towns of local KMP explosives
Manjuyod and chapters
Sta. Catalina
(30 Mar)
Northern 28 Jan Barangay 6 people (2 Arrested by combined
Mindanao and 30 Patag in arrested/ elements of CIDG and
arrests Jan 2019 Cagayan de abducted on military; they claimed the
Oro City 28 Jan and victims were arrested
(28 Jan) and 4 on 30 Jan for illegal possession of
Villanueva in a raid at firearms and explosives
town in their office),
Misamis farmers and
Oriental (30 leaders/
Jan) members
of local/
regional KMP
chapters and
Lumad group
Kalumbay
Source: Karapatan
The killings were justified by authorities allegedly because the victims were
armed rebels who engaged the soldiers and police in shootouts. Paramilitary
and private armed groups reportedly in the payroll of local landlords were
also involved. In particular in the province of Negros Oriental, simultaneous
police and military operations resulted in alleged summary executions of
farmers. (See Table 4)
Meanwhile, mass arrests of farmers, leaders and members of peasant and

indigenous peoples’ groups and peasant rights advocates are also on the
rise. Since last year, at least nine incidents of mass arrests were reported
and documented by Karapatan (as of this writing). They were carried out
by combined elements of the PNP and AFP and justified by what human
rights advocates describe as trumped up charges of illegal possession of
firearms and explosives and alleged membership to the NPA. (See Table 5)
The most recent of these cases which happened in Negros Oriental

province in central Philippines and in the northern Mindanao region stood
out because of the brazenness of the police and military operations.
In Negros Oriental, the 27 Dec 2018 and 30 Mar 2019 police/military

operations supposedly against illegal firearms, killed 20 people and arrested
a total of 41 people, mostly farmers.
In northern Mindanao, the police and military carried out their 28 and 30
Jan 2019 operations through abduction and a subsequent raid on the office
of a farmers’ group that resulted in the arrest and detention of six people.
Resistance amid terror and impunity
The increasing repression of rural communities is happening amid

the intensified military campaign against insurgency in the Philippine
countryside, in particular against the Communist Party of the Philippines
(CPP) and its armed wing, the NPA. For more than five decades, the
NPA has been waging a civil war to, among others, end landlessness in
the country. As such, it has as its main base of support the peasant and
indigenous communities.
Duterte’s campaign against the NPA apparently targets unarmed peasant

civilians in communities deemed sympathetic to the rebel group. Leaders
and members of legitimate community-based peasant groups are specifically
targeted, with the military claiming that these organizations are CPP-NPA
fronts.
True or not, targeting unarmed civilians and civilian organizations violates

the basic principles of humanitarian law and feeds the cycle of rural conflict
and violence that is first and foremost rooted in peasant landlessness.
What is certain, as repeatedly proven in the past in the Philippines and

elsewhere, such anti-insurgency strategy and method just open the
floodgates of atrocities that state forces, including paramilitary groups and
private armies, wreak on hapless peasant communities.
What set the tone for the increased attacks on rural communities was the
abandonment by the Duterte administration of the initially promising peace
negotiations to address rural landlessness, among other social and economic
reforms, to end the peasant war being waged by the NPA.
On 23 November 2017, Duterte issued Proclamation No. 360 that

terminated the talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines
(NDFP) which represents the CPP and NPA in the peace negotiations.
Duterte subsequently issued Proclamation No. 374 that declared the said
groups as terrorist organizations; Memorandum No. 32 (22 Nov 2018) that
placed Negros, Bicol and Samar regions under state of emergency; and
Executive Order No. 70 (4 Dec 2018) that created a national task force to
end the communist armed conflict.
These presidential issuances paved the way for the full implementation of
Duterte’s counterinsurgency campaign, the so-called Oplan Kapayapaan
(literally, peace) and expanded Martial Law in Mindanao to the entire
country.
In reality, Duterte’s approach (i.e., “whole of nation”) to the insurgency

through Oplan Kapayapaan and through his string of executive issuances is
not new.
Like the counterinsurgency campaigns of his predecessors, Oplan

Kapayapaan of Duterte utilizes the entire machinery and vast resources of
the state – from the armed forces (military, paramilitary, and police) to
civilian bureaucracy (that Duterte has also deeply militarized), including
development agencies and the judiciary (especially useful in providing a veil
of legitimacy to Duterte’s issuances such as Martial Law and in justifying
the arrests and killings).
But what makes Duterte’s campaign even more vicious is that the President
himself appears to openly incite state repression and violence against the
rural people with his virulent rants such as his “order” to bomb Lumad
schools supposedly run by the NPA or shooting down landless farmers that
are taking over farmlands.
His words are clearly not empty threats, as they embolden the soldiers
and police deployed in the rural communities to commit atrocities against
civilians with ever worsening impunity as harshly experienced by numerous
families in the Philippine countryside.
Amid the unspeakable brutality and terror that affected rural communities
face, the people are doing all they could to push back the repression and
assert their legitimate and basic human rights. Fact-finding and solidarity
missions were promptly organized to independently probe the killings and
support the families and survivors. Expressions and acts of support from
inside and outside the country, from various sectors including religious
groups, and even from national and local public officials continue to gather
steam.
Amid the never-ending threats they face on the ground, Filipino human
rights defenders continue to carry out the increasingly dangerous tasks of
documenting and monitoring the abuses that state forces commit; filing
cases against the perpetrators; organizing and mobilizing the communities;
and demanding justice and accountability.
Some have already produced positive results such as the pullout of troops
in heavily militarized areas due to public pressure. But the situation will
remain very difficult on the ground and impunity will continue to reign as
long as the direction dictated at the top of the country’s power hierarchy
remains authoritarian and militarist.
Sources and references

1. Karapatan, Duterte’s Blueprint for a Dictatorship, 2018 Year-End Report on the Human Rights
Situation in the Philippines
2. PAN Asia Pacific, Land & Rights Watch 2018 Yearend Report
3. Stop Killing Farmers Facebook page
NEGROS 14: NEW WAVE OF PEASANT
KILLINGS
By People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS)
I n the wee hours of March 30, 2019, Leonor Avelino, wife of peasant leader
Ismael Avelino, was shocked to see armed men pointing guns at her when
she came out the bathroom. Several policemen have forced their way into
their home situated at Barangay Panubigan, Canlaon City, Negros Oriental.
Gunshots followed after she saw another policeman enter their bedroom
where her husband is. As she was forced to go outside the house with her
son, she did not see where Edgardo was until much later – dead, with at least
8 gunshot wounds in the torso.
At that same hour, Carmelita Avelino, residing in the house beside Leonor’s,
was woken up by a loud knock on her door, followed by armed policemen
who forced it open. She and her children, Israel and her daughter Grace
who is a minor, were dragged outside the house while her husband Edgardo
Avelino, a peasant leader, was left inside. As soon as the three of them were
outside, they heard three gunshots coming from the house. She, too, will not
see her husband until the ambulance came much later – discovering him
dead with two gunshot wounds in the chest and one in the head.
Edgardo was the chairperson of Hugpong Kusog Mag-uuma sa Canlaon or

Organized Farmers’ Strength of Canlaon (HuKoM), a local chapter of the
militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the
Philippines) while his brother Ismael, a farmer, was a member.
The brutal deaths of Edgardo and Ismael were a result of simultaneous

police operations of the Philippine National Police Negros Oriental named
Oplan Sauron or Synchronized Enhanced Managing of Police Operations
(SEMPO) which left 14 persons, mostly farmers, dead – eight in Canlaon
34 Negros 14: New wave of peasant killings
City, four in Manjuyod, and two in Sta. Catalina, including 2 village chiefs.
According to reports, they were all killed between 2:00AM and 5:30AM
of March 30, 2019. This operation also arrested at least 5 people including
local peasant leaders on the same day.
The massacre of what has been known as Negros 14 is but the latest to
the new wave of killings under the government of Philippine president
Rodrigo Roa Duterte.
Farmers slain amid fight for land
According to KMP, there are 205 farmers summarily executed since

Duterte took power mid-2016. Most of these involve farmers targeted for
standing up against landgrabbing, in an ongoing land dispute case, or tilling
in the lands earmarked for investors – and the killings in the Island of
Negros are no different.
Negros is known as the “hacienda capital” of the Philippines as much of the

land is still owned by big landlords or “hacienderos” while vast majority of
farmers remain landless and work for meager wages as agricultural workers
in sugar plantations and mills. The history of self-organizing and political
participation of agricultural workers and the landless for land reform in
Negros has always been met with violent suppression and brutal State
intervention.
The abject poverty of landless farmers in Negros become more stark in

Tiempo Muerto, literally translated as dead times, a 4-6 months gap between
planting and harvesting of sugarcane where agricultural workers do not
have any work nor income – a purgatory between life and death for farmers.
With little to no support from the government, self-organized farm

workers occupy and cultivate undistributed lands eligible for the lapsed land
reform program, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
Agricultural workers led by local chapters of KMP and the National
Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) initiate bungkalan or collective tilling
of lands during Tiempo Muerto to assert both their right to land and the
need for land distribution. But even though these lands should have been
covered by the 20-year distribution program, farmers tilling these lands are
always met with harassment, intimidation, ejectment, and in extreme cases,
summary executions.
Box 1. Negros, the Hacienda Capital

The Island of Negros is a portrait of peasant impoverishment in the
Philippines. Large landholdings of sugarcane plantations and vast natural
resources are owned and controlled by a few landlords – condemning
the farmers to century-long landlessness and servitude to the “sugar
barons” of the island.
Almost 70% of the population in the region is comprised of poor farmers,

farm workers, and fisherfolks.
Poverty incidence in its two provinces Negros Oriental and Negros

Occidental is among the highest in the country at around 45% and 29%,
respectively, way higher than the 21.6% national average.a
Known as the Philippines’ sugar bowl, the Island of Negros produces

56% of sugarcane in the country and is home to 56% of sugar mills and
plantations in the country. The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura
(Federation of Agricultural Workers) reports that of the 424,130
hectares of sugar lands in Negros, 40% are owned by 1,860 big landlordsb,
while 30% are owned by 6,820 small landlords.
On the other hand, there are around 335,000 sugar plantation and mill
workers in the island, almost half in the country. The agricultural workers
earn on an average PhP 1,500 – PhP 2,000 (USD 29 -USD 38) a month
which roughly translates to PhP 50 – PhP 67 (USD 0.96 – USD 1.29) a
day. A family of five means each get PhP 10 – PhP 13 (USD 0.19 – USD
0.25) for their daily subsistence.
Despite 28 years of implementation, CARP has failed to distribute these

vast tracts of land to the landless tillers. In fact, Negros has the highest
balance in private lands earmarked for land distribution covering around
110,000 hectares, according to the Department of Agrarian Reform
(DAR). Most of these lands are the landholdings of “haciendas” owned
by big landlords in the island.
This combination of blatant state neglect and feudal exploitation has

bred the worst conditions for the agricultural workers in Negros. The
island is a hub for the sakada system or the internal labor migration
in the Philippines, comparable only to the slave-trade in Africa where
people are almost sold to work in distant lands without any safety nets
or assurances and paid by slave-like wages. Out of almost 3 million child
workers in the country, 60% of them are in Negros.
a Official Poverty Estimates. Philippine Statistics Authority. 2015
b UMA named the landlord families of the Cojuangco, Aquino, Roxas, Araneta, Torres, Teves
and others, as among those with vast tracts of land in the region.
The history of peasant killings in Negros is the history of their fight for land,
food, and justice. Even under Marcos’ martial rule, the sacadas and farmers
of Negros, compelled by the sugar crisis, launched waves upon waves of
protests calling for land reform, fair wages, and government support. On
September 20, 1985, soldiers and paramilitary forces opened fire on the
protesters in Escalante City, killing 20 farmers, which came to be known as
the Escalante Massacre.
Peasant killings continue even after the dictator had been toppled. Enforced
disappearances, frustrated killings, and extrajudicial killings continued in
Negros under the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Benigno Simeon Aquino
III regimes.
But the rate at which farmers are being slain under the Duterte regime has
surpassed that of his predecessors. In the last three years alone, at least 55
farmers and land rights advocates have been victims of extrajudicial killings
in the island. Worse, the Duterte administration even insists that the recent
spate of killings in Negros are legitimate police operations.
Fact: Negros 14 summarily executed by PNP
Following the horrific news of the Negros 14 killings, KMP, human rights
group Karapatan, legal experts and independent civil society members
launched a fact-finding mission in Negros from April 4-7. Through analysis
of the first-hand interviews from witnesses, hard evidence, and statements
from the victims’ kin, the 54-member mission concluded that: “the horrific
nature and extent of the victims’ wounds belie any claim that the force
used against them was – by any stretch of the imagination – reasonable, and
erodes the Philippine National Police’s credibility as to its claim that the
killings were carried out under justifiable circumstances.”1
While the Duterte administration maintains that search warrants were served
on March 30 and that legal proceedings were accomplished to the letter,
the Mission discovered numerous irregularities in said documents such as
use of false information among others. Detailed statements of the witnesses
also prove that warrants were signed under duress or search warrants were
1 Final Report of the National Fact-Finding and Solidarity Mission in Negros Oriental, Philippines, April
4-8, 2019. Available at https://www.karapatan.org/FINAL+REPORT+OF+THE+NATIONAL+FA
CT-FINDING+AND+SOLIDARITY+MISSION+IN+NEGROS+ORIENTAL%2C+PHILIPPIN
ES+April+4-8%2C+2019
Box 2
Farmers and kin slain on March Farmers and kin arrested on
30, 2019 March 30, 2019
1. Edgardo Avelino, 59 1. Nestor Balderas Kadusale
2. Ismael Avelino, 53 2. Georaldine G. Pelobello
3. Melchor Panares, 67 3. Armogena Caballero
4. Mario Panares, 46 4. Azucena Avelino Garubat
5. Rogelio Ricomuno, 52 5. Corazon Gazar Javier
6. Ricky Ricomuno, 28
7. Gonzalo Rosales, 47
8. Genes Palmares, 54
9. Franklin Lariosa
10. Anoj Enojo Rapada
11. Valentin Acabal
12. Sonny Palagtiw
13. Steve Arapoc
14. Manolo Martin
either given to the victims’ families only after the killings took place or such
copies were never provided at all. The Mission also noted inconsistencies
in the search warrants used against the victims and the inventories of items
allegedly confiscated from the houses of those killed and arrested.
The Mission found out that,“state security forces involved in the operations
were armed with high-powered rifles, donning combat attire (either
camouflage or all-black uniforms) and wore masks or bonnets to hide their
faces. None of their uniforms bore visible nameplates that could be used
for identification. These facts assured anonymity for the actions that would
follow.”
The Mission’s report also highlights multiple cases of planting of evidence,

theft, and abuse of the authorities. Relatives of slain Sonny Palagtiw, Valentin
Acabal, Edgardo Avelino, Armogena Caballero and Steve Arapoc reported
a total amount of PhP 167,300 or USD 3,217.30 stolen by the operatives.
Arapoc’s younger brother, Mc Khillif Jun, was assaulted and handcuffed
while his sister, Keren Arapoc, was harassed when she was frisked by a
member of the raiding team.
The Mission also reported that interviews and review of evidence on those
arrested show that the arrests made that night were, in fact, illegal and were
based on trumped up cases. Strong indication of PNP planting evidence
and abuse of power according to witness accounts were confirmed. The
report also noted that most of the arrested farmers and kin were either
members or leaders of local farmers’ organizations or progressive groups.
Despite condemnation and clear evidence, the Duterte administration

backs up the PNP Negros and denies allegations of premeditated killings.
In fact, retired AFP Chief General Eduardo Año, current secretary of the
Department of Interior and Local Government said, “we stand by our
police officers and we will provide them with the best legal defense to
help them overcome whatever legal challenges that may arise as a result of
several operations.”2
Memo Circular 32: Tokhang in the Rural Areas
On November 22, 2018, President Duterte issued Memo Circular 32, which
provides “reinforcing guidelines” for the AFP and PNP in implementing
“measures to suppress and prevent lawless violence.” This Memo places the
Island of Negros, Samar, Bicol among others under tighter military control
and increased military deployment.
Consequently, the PNP Negros’ implementation program for Memo 32

also known as SEMPO, and later named Oplan Sauron, was executed on
Dec. 27-29, 2018 in Guihulngan City (Negros Oriental) and resulted in the
death of six people and several others being arrested.
According to PNP, much like what they said for the Negros 14, the six
killed fought back, and that gunfight ensued between the farmers and
security forces. In police lingo, “nanlaban” or “fought back” was the term
they used to justify the deaths of victims. It is not surprising that the end-
result of extra-judicial killings (EJKs) under Memo 32 and Oplan Sauron
is similar to the deaths in Duterte’s War on Drugs program Oplan Tokhang.
Duterte’s Oplan Tokhang claimed more than 20,000 lives, mostly urban
poor, in a spree of ‘drug-related killings’ done by the PNP and sanctioned
vigilantes in the cities.
2 http://manilastandard.net/news/top-stories/291640/4-top-cops-sacked-over-negros-14.html
Box 3. Sagay 9
Nine farmers were killed in a day after they started the “bungkalan” (land
cultivation), attempting to cultivate 75 hectares of land inside Hacienda
Nene, a plantation in Sagay City, Negros Occidental province in central
Philippines last October 19, 2018.
According to local reports, the attack on the farm workers by dozens of

armed men occurred at around 9:30 pm while the victims were sleeping
inside their makeshift huts.
The farm workers killed were union members of the National Federation
of Sugar Workers (NFSW); among them were three women and two
minors. They were part of the collective bungkalan in the disputed
Hacienda Nene sugarcane plantation organized by the NFSW. Through
bungkalan, farmers occupy idle and undistributed lands covered by the
government’s land reform program to assert the farmers’ right to land
and food.
Those killed were identified as Eglicerio C. Villegas, 36; Angelife D.

Arsenal; Rene “Dodong” Laurencio; Morena Mendoza; Marcelina
“Necnec” Dumaguit; Rannel “Bingbing” Bantigue, and Paterno Baron.
The two minors were Jomarie Ughayon Jr., 16; and Marchtel A. Sumicad,
17. Farmers who survived the incident initially reported that at least 40
armed men arrived and fired at them.
It is ironic that the Memo Circular 32 that is now terrorizing the countryside
was done supposedly in response to another massacre in Negros – after nine
organized farmers were killed in their sleep last October 19, 2018.
“Red-tagging” farmers to justify EJKs
One of the notable tactics used in almost all cases of peasant killings,
including the Sagay 9 and the Negros 14, is tagging them as members of
the armed revolutionary group New People’s Army (NPA). In an interview,
PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde said that based on police intelligence reports,
those who were killed in Negros have previous participation in an alleged

ambush on policemen and an Army sergeant.3
The Memo Circular 32 was pursuant to President Duterte’s Proclamation

No. 55, issued on September 4, 2016 which places Mindanao under
Martial Law on account of lawless violence. While the Proclamation was
supposedly implemented to quell ‘terrorist’ activities for a year, the Duterte
administration extended it for two consecutive years.
Supposedly, expanded in scope by the Memo 32, the Proclamation shifted

its focus on (1) counter-insurgency and (2) countering illicit drug trade.The
memo orders the prompt investigation and prosecution of “all individuals
or groups apprehended for committing, or conspiring to commit, acts of
lawless violence.” This is despite the piling up of EJK victims and cases filed
against Duterte’s War on Drugs, and Duterte’s internal peace and security
program Oplan Kapayapaan.
By “red-tagging” victims, the administration and State forces continuously

attempt to rationalize the harassment, human rights violations, and killings
the operations result in. On the other hand, by lumping punitive and
violent actions which are land-related or politically motivated to drug-
related killings, the administration clearly hopes to discredit the victims and
to justify the culture of impunity it entails.
Aiding Massacres: US Involvement
The Duterte administration is the largest recipient of US military aid in Asia.4

It has received more than PhP 5 billion or USD 95 million since January
2017. The US has consistently trained, armed, and provided logistics to
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and PNP including warplanes,
ships, and armored vehicles.
In 2018, the US gave USD 193.5 million for the AFP and PNP for anti-
insurgency operations and anti-narcotics drive despite the clear proof
of mass murder that ensued. It also donated 2,253 machine guns, over 5
million rounds of ammunition, surveillance equipment, and other weapons.
3 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2019/04/01/1906389/pnp-negros-oriental-operations-where-14-
died-not-massacre
4 https://philippineslifestyle.com/military-aid-usa-philippines/
In January 2019, US President Trump authorized USD 1.5 billion military

aid annually for the Asia-Pacific region, including the Philippines, from
2019 to 2023. The US State Department also pledged to contribute USD
5.3 million to PNP for its anti-drugs campaign.
More than bankrolling the killings in the Philippines, the US plays a much
crucial role in the current spree of human rights violations in the country
– the US Counter-insurgency Guide. The Duterte administration’s internal
peace and security program Oplan Kapayapaan is patterned, guided, and
designed from the US counter-insurgency doctrine.
Stop the Killings
The top police officers involved in the operation that led to the bloodbath
of March 30 were reinstated last April 22, 2019. Col. Tacaca is designated as
the provincial police director of Negros Oriental. Chiefs of police Lt. Col.
Patricio Degay (Canlaon City Police Station), Lt. Kevin Roy Mamaraldo
(Manjuyod Municipal Police Station) and Capt. Michael Rubia (Sta.
Catalina Municipal Police Station) were also reinstated. The four were
previously relieved of their post after the public decried the killings.
The consecutive peasant massacres in Negros are concentrated manifestations

of a nationwide trend of intensifying peasant killings. Farming and
indigenous peoples communities in the country, primarily in Negros,
Bicol, Samar, and Mindanao are experiencing various combinations of food
blockade, ejectment, airstrikes, summary executions, and massacres.
By targeting the farmers and their leaders who are fighting for their land,
this killing spree is baring its own motivations to the people – a desperate
attempt to quell the brewing anger of the farmers, peasants and rural peoples
to landlessness, poverty, and injustice.
Sources:
1. Report on Negros. Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura. 2018
2. Affidavit for the International Peoples’ Tribunal – National Federation of Sugar Workers. 2019
3. Final Report of the National Fact-Finding and Solidarity Mission in Negros Oriental, Philippines. 2019
THE REINCARNATION OF MARCOS AND THE
REINVENTION OF MARTIAL LAW
By Lyn Angelica Pano
A lready criticized in the past for filling his Cabinet with former police
and military officials, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently
announced intentions of bringing in more.
"I have a special fondness for the military for being fundamentally honest
at [and] industrious," he said on April 9, 2019. "Kaya [That's why] as you
would see, 'yung unang [the first] — the next few officials coming in would
be military guys," he added.
“They say militarization of government. Correct!”
After a showcase appointment and subsequent removal of left-recommended

personalities, the President appointed at least 59 former security officials to
his cabinet and key government agencies (Table 1). Apart from these, there
are also those appointed to service and regional directorship posts such as at
the Office of Civil Defense.
In October 2018, Duterte relieved all heads of the Bureau of Customs

(BOC) following the entry of about Php 11 billion worth of crystal
methamphetamine (domestically known as shabu) in the country, and
designated former Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Rey
Guerrero as new Commissioner in place of Isidro Lapeña, a former high-
ranking police officer. A week later, he also said that the personnel of the
Bureau of Customs would be on “floating status” and they would later be
“replaced...all of them...by military men.”
44 The Reincarnation of Marcos and the Reinvention of Martial Law
Table 1. The appointees (as of June 27, 2017)

1. Roberto Lastimoso — chair, Philippine National Railways
2. Miguel dela Cruz Abaya — director, Development Bank of the Philippines
3. Delfin Lorenzana — secretary, Department of National Defense (DND)
4. Francisco Villaroman — director, Clark Development Corp. (CDC)
5. Alex Monteagudo — director general, National Intelligence Coordination
Agency
6. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. — director general, National Security Council
(NSC)
7. Roy Cimatu — secretary, Department of Environment and Natural
Resources
8. Benjamin Defensor — director, CDC
9. Ricardo David — undersecretary, DND
10. Emmanuel Bautista — executive director, Office of the Executive Director
on Security, Justice and Peace Cluster
11. Ricardo Visaya — administrator, National Irrigation Administration
12. Jason Aquino — administrator, National Food Authority
13. Nicanor Faeldon — commissioner, Bureau of Customs
14. Danilo Lim — chair, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority
15. Eduardo “Red” Kapunan — ambassador to Myanmar
16. Catalino Cuy — officer in charge and undersecretary for peace and order,
Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG)
17. Nestor Quinsay Jr. — assistant secretary, DILG
18. Arthur Tabaquero — undersecretary, Presidential Adviser on Military
Affairs
19. Rufino Lopez — deputy director general, NSC
20. Cardozo Luna — undersecretary, DND
21. Eduardo del Rosario — undersecretary for civil, veterans and retiree
affairs, DND
22. Raymundo Elefante — undersecretary for finance and materiel, DND
23. Cesar Yano — undersecretary for defense operations, DND
24. Ricardo Jalad — administrator, Office of Civil Defense (OCD); executive
director, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council
25. Marciano Paynor Jr. — undersecretary, Office of the President (OP)
26. Ernesto Carolina — administrator, Philippine Veterans Affairs Office
(PVAO)
27. Raul Caballes — deputy administrator, PVAO
28. Rodolfo Demosthenes Santillan — deputy administrator for operations,
OCD
29. Jonathan Martir — government arsenal director, DND
30. Anselmo Simeon Pinili — special envoy on transnational crime, OP
31. Allan Guisihan — executive director, Philippine Center on Transnational
Crime
32. Dickson Hermoso — assistant secretary for peace and security affairs,
Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process
33. Edgar Galvante — assistant secretary, Land Transportation Office

34. Isidro Lapeña — director general, Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency
(PDEA)
35. Jesus Fajardo — deputy director general for administration, PDEA
36. Jaime Morente — commissioner, Bureau of Immigration
37. Eduardo Gongona — national director, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic
Resources
38. Jose Jorge Corpuz — chair, Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO)
39. Alexander Balutan — general manager, PCSO
40. Reynaldo Berroya — administrator, Light Rail Transit Authority
41. Rodolfo J. Garcia — general manager, Metro Rail Transit 3
42. Reuben Lista — president and CEO, Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC)
43. Oscar Rabena — director, PNOC-Exploration Corp.
44. Bruce Concepcion — director, PNOC
45. Adolf Borje — director, PNOC
46. Alan Luga — trustee, Government Service Insurance System
47. Ferdinand Golez — director, Bases Conversion and Development
Authority (BCDA)
48. Romeo Poquiz — director, BCDA
49. Raul Urgello — director, Philippine Sugar Corp.
50. Abraham Bagasin — director, John Hay Management Corp. (JHMC)
51. Reynald Mapagu — director, North Luzon Railway Corp.
52. Michael Mellijor Tulen — director, Philippine National Railways
53. Roberto Estioko — president, National Defense College of the Philippines
(NDCP)
54. Rolando Jungco — executive vice president, NDCP
55. Jessie Cardona — technical assistant, Office of the Executive Secretary-
Anti-Terrorism Council-Program Management Center
56. Jim Sydiongco — director general, Civil Aviation Authority of the
Philippines (CAAP)
57. Manuel Antonio Tamayo — deputy director general, CAAP
58. Eduardo Davalan — director, JHMC
59. Eduardo Año — secretary, DILG
Source: https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/908958/duterte-hires-59-former-afp-pnp-men-to-cabinet-
agencies
Source: https://www.ibon.org/2019/01/militarization-of-the-government/
Palace spokesperson Salvador Panelo explained that the military appointees

“will come in to assist them [the customs bureau] first and then eventually
they would be taking over respective positions." But after pushback from
critics, Duterte clarified his order. Soldiers would not take over BOC posts
but would supervise personnel to ensure contraband would not slip into
the country again. Lapeña, on the other hand, was appointed chief of the
Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).
Rep. Carlos Zarate of Bayan Muna said having 61 military appointees

“strengthens the de facto military junta now in place in the country and
endangers civil servants and the general populace because the appointees
are trained to just follow orders, without question.” He added: “This style
of pampering the military is also prone to incompetence and waste of the
people’s money because they are not suited for the jobs they are rewarded
with.”
Without any denial, Duterte remarked on October 31, 2018 that “almost
everyone is from the military except for Dabs [former TESDA chief Guiling
Mamondiong], me [Duterte], [Executive Secretary Salvador] Medialdea…
They say, 'militarization of the government.' Correct!" By December 2018,
one third of the cabinet is composed of officials with histories with the AFP
and the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Moreover, Pres. Duterte also issued Executive Order No. 67, which
transferred eight agencies, formerly under the Office of the Cabinet
Secretary, to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Department of
Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Department of Social Welfare
and Development (DSWD).The DILG and DSWD are currently headed by
former military generals, Eduardo Año and Rolando Bautista, respectively.
Thus, six of the eight agencies now fall under a department led by ex-
military officials. The written mandates of these agencies mostly concern
marginalized groups. The National Commission on Muslim Filipinos,
Philippine Commission on Women and the National Youth Commission
are now under DILG. The National Anti-Poverty Commission, National
Commission on Indigenous Peoples and the Presidential Commission on
the Urban Poor are now under the DSWD.
Concerns linger on the implications of such a reshuffling on the de facto

functions of these institutions, given the ongoing approach to make
“counterinsurgency” a coherent policy across government. Would these
lead to further instrumentalization of civil agencies for security purposes?
Justifications and criticisms
A proud apologist of former Philippine dictator Marcos, President Duterte

implied in an October 2018 speech that the military should not have handed
back power to civilian leaders after the popular ousters of former presidents
Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada in 2001. He also insinuated
that the Philippines would be better off with a dictator or a military junta
than with Vice President Leni Robredo, his constitutional successor.
Duterte also defended police and military appointments to key civilian posts
by saying that persons who served in the military are less likely to "debate"
with him when implementing policies, that they are used to working under
harsh conditions, and that they “fight the enemies of the state and die.” He
credited former military men and now DILG and Environment Secretaries
Eduardo Año and Roy Cimatu for the rehabilitation of the beach area
and popular tourist destination, Boracay. He also praised housing chief and
retired military general Eduardo del Rosario for the supposed efforts to
rebuild areas affected by the Marawi siege.
Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo attempted to justify the AFP

"takeover" of the customs bureau, saying that the massive corruption in the
bureau constitutes "lawless violence." He also stressed that "the President
is authorized under the law to direct the movements of the members of
the AFP in any manner he deems it fit," and that he remains in control of
all executive offices and the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Asked how
long the President’s order would take effect, Panelo said it will remain until
“it is necessary” and as long as the President is satisfied with the BOC’s
performance.
Both the justice department and key officials in the legislature back the
President’s actions. Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra assured that
Guerrero’s appointment to the Customs does not violate the civilian
supremacy rule, excusing that a retired member of the AFP is considered
“a civilian.” House Speaker and former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
said these appointees “are literally good soldiers” and that being in the same
position once, she “know[s] more or less that the President has to consider
so many things when he makes his decision.” Senate President Vicente
Sotto III believed drastic measures, an overhaul from top to bottom, are
needed to finally crack the whip in the bureau. It would be essential to ask,
what about checks and balances?
It is not true that Duterte only “romances” with so-called retired and
therefore now-“civilian” military and police officers. Throughout his long
stint as Davao City mayor and right from the start of his presidency, Duterte
hopped from one military camp and hospital to another, promising and
delivering on doubling the salaries of both the AFP and PNP, gifting them
with handguns, watches, cash, and pleasure trips to Hong Kong.
So protective is he of his soldiers that, Satur Ocampo writes, “he obdurately

refuses to use [them] in what he conjures or dreads will be a war with
China, if he vigorously asserts Philippine sovereignty and sovereign rights
in the West Philippine Sea. He [Duterte] keeps on saying that the Filipinos
would be “massacred” if such an assertion would provoke a war with the
Chinese.”
The AFP is an internal-looking apparatus, mainly concerned with threats

like the New Peoples’ Army and Moro secessionists, and sees China like
an ”abstract thing”, according to military historian Jose Antonio Custodio.

“That’s his style of governance.That’s even his style of patronage. If you vote
for him, he will promise you security, safety,” said Ateneo de Manila political
science professor Carmel Abao. While his top concerns, the crackdown on
illegal drugs and criminality, can be approached in different ways – drug
addiction as a health issue and criminality as a poverty issue – Duterte
sees them primarily as security concerns requiring a response through the
coercion of the State. His extension of martial law in Mindanao (military
rule in the whole island was first declared in late May 2017 during the
battle of Marawi between state security forces and ISIS-linked groups)
despite the end of the clash with ISIS-linked groups shows that he wants to
“normalize” the state of emergency.
Benefits for businesses, losses for the penniless
Trade and industry department Secretary Ramon Lopez believes “the

military will be there to help in the enforcement and adding better controls
[in the customs bureau], lessening or eliminating corruption without
affecting the smoother workflow and processing of documents.”
Similarly, the country’s largest business organization, the Philippine

Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), said in a statement the
military appointees at the Bureau of Customs may trigger an “overhaul of
the system” in one of the most corrupt government agencies, and that the
Chamber is “hopeful that the move would not affect trade and transactions”
with the bureau.
The president of the Philippine Exporters Confederation Inc., Sergio

Ortiz-Luis Jr., said the group “is hopeful the military personnel who will
be assigned at the BOC would help in trade facilitation.”
Amid big business groups’ support, a quick look at the “accomplishments”

of appointed former security personnel points to a questionable record on
people’s rights.
The war against drugs: A war against the poor
https://bigpicturesais.com/2018/09/18/fruits-of-impunity-collateral-damage-in-dutertes-war-on-drugs/
Pres. Duterte defended his former Bureau of Customs chiefs for not having
curbed the illicit entry of methamphetamine (shabu) into the country,
saying that “[Former Customs Commissioner Nicanor] Faeldon is a Marine,
[former commissioner] Sid [Lapeña] is a police. They do not know, so I said
men from the Army might be better.” He added that with the nature of the
work of the customs bureau, it is really inevitable for shabu to slip through,
no matter one’s competence and honesty. "Every day, 7,000 containers pass
through, on average... Something will really get past you. The best thing to
do there is to buy another X-ray machine," said Pres. Duterte.
To this, detained senator Leila De Lima said that Duterte himself is

responsible for the current corruption at the BOC: by not going after
Faeldon for the Php 6.4-billion shabu smuggling and Lapeña for the Php
11-billion shipment, by merely resorting to “populist gimmick” and by
even rewarding these former customs Commissioners by re-assigning them
elsewhere.
Noting the Congressional investigation against the customs bureau and the
Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) amid issues of negligence,
if not complicity, regarding drug trade, Alliance of Concerned Teachers
Partylist Representative Antonio Tinio said that Duterte “is engaging in
theatrics rather than in actually rooting out corruption and stemming the
flow of illegal drugs from abroad.” He added that Duterte merely reassigns
his appointees “while refusing to hold anyone accountable,” making it “clear
that the war on drugs is a scam meant to protect the drug smugglers at the
cost of the lives of thousands of drug users.”
According to the PDEA, 4,948 suspected drug users and dealers “died”
(instead of “killed”) during police operations from July 1, 2016 to
September 30, 2018. But this does not yet include the 22,983 others
(including minors and children) killed by unidentified gunmen, which have
been classified as “homicides under investigation.” The exact number of
fatalities is difficult to ascertain because the government did not disclose
official documents about the “drug war,” has issued contradictory statistics
and, in the case of these “homicides under investigation,” stopped releasing
the figures altogether — according to Human Rights Watch.
Duterte vowed to continue his “anti-drug” campaign until his term ends
in 2022 and swore that “it will be as relentless and chilling as on the day it
began.” He has also vowed to protect from prosecution the police officers
and agents carrying out the “drug war”.
Boracay: Paradise regained?
The popular destination of Boracay became paradise lost since the

business and tourist industry takeover of the island over the years — big
establishments replaced the nipa huts and sari-sari stores, and irresponsible
businesses destroyed the pristine surroundings. But after the six-month
forced closure and “environmental rehabilitation,” was paradise regained?
It was, for the government’s “internal security” agenda, for business-led
tourism and those that benefit from it, but not for the local communities,
small, local enterprises, and workers.
First of all, locals were not involved in planning and deciding the future of
their home island. Second, at least 400 government troops were stationed
in the island before the closure announcement, followed by 150 policemen
and 28 navy personnel. The Philippine Coast Guard also deployed BRP
Cabra, a 44-meter multirole vessel manned by 40 personnel off its coast.
Source: https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/04/24/18/nearly-600-govt-troops-to-patrol-boracay-during-6-
month-shut-down
Third, they held a simulation exercise involving nearly 600 soldiers, police
and coast guard members for any ”emergency situations” that might arise,
including mass protests – a clear warning against any people’s resistance.
Julius Reyes, commander of the army contingent said “there are no terrorist
threats but we want to be prepared just in case.” About 36,000 island workers
from the formal and informal sectors were then expected to lose their
jobs during the half-year closure – all in the name of so-called “sustainable
tourism.”
Indeed, displaced residents and workers lamented after a year that many of
them remain pleading for alternative livelihoods, food and relief assistance,
on-site relocation and rehabilitation sites from the government, according
to We Are Boracay, a group of vendors, tricycle drivers, masseuses, tour
guides and other workers in the informal sector.
Worse, former military official and current Environment Secretary Roy

Cimatu looks to displacing locals in the name of “ensur[ing] there is no
congestion” in the island. Citing a study of his Department on Environment
and Natural Resources (DENR) on the island’s carrying capacity of 54,945
people per day, Cimatu said that “in the long-term we have to bring out the
workers, and we are making it easy for them now that we have plans to
transport them [including] a special pier for their use in Caticlan [emphasis
added].” The locals, from being the native inhabitants who are supposed
to mainly benefit from tourism, will be mere workers transported – and
therefore dislocated – to and from the island in order to serve tourists and
businesses as needed.
There have been allegations that environmental concerns served an excuse

for the shutdown to facilitate the entry of a Hong Kong firm Galaxy
Entertainment casino. The government, after denying and claiming itself
“clueless” on the issue, released official photos showing President Duterte
meeting with Galaxy Entertainment's executives, including its chairman
Lui Che-woo.
Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) chairperson

Andrea Domingo in official statements also said that a casino-resort
was discussed in the said meeting. In April 2019, various news agencies
confirmed the existence of numerous newly-established Chinese-owned
businesses and some 300 mainland Chinese-citizen workers, over which the
Department of Labor and Employment said they have "no control".
Marawi: Rising from the ashes?
On October 17, 2017, President Duterte declared victory against the

Islamic State-aligned Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups that laid siege on the
country’s lone Islamic city of Marawi. Twenty months later, however, the
urban warfare that killed close to a thousand alleged Islamic militants, has
left 12,700 families or around 70,000 individuals dehumanized in filthy
evacuation sites and transitional shelters. The 250-hectare main battle area
— now referred to as Most Affected Area (MAA) – remains a horrific sight
and continues to be off-limits to residents.
Retired military general and current Housing Secretary Eduardo del Rosario,
also Task Force Bangon Marawi (TFBM) chair, earlier set the deadline
for the clearing of around three million tons of debris and unexploded
ordnance to August 30, 2019 (later moved to 2021). He also announced that
MAA residents will be allowed to return by the “first week of September”
to repair their destroyed properties, while least affected area residents of
the MAA might even be allowed to return “as early as July.” As of March
2019, however, 49 unexploded ordnance (UXOs) – or explosives still at
risk of detonation – have yet to be recovered from the 70 UXOs dropped
Source: https://www.asiaone.com/sites/default/files/original_images/May2019/190429_marawiphilippines_
inquirer_2.jpg
by military aircraft. This is the main reason, according to del Rosario, why
residents are not allowed to return to their homes at Ground Zero.
Abdul Hamidullah Atar, the Sultan of Marawi, slammed the government

for failing to expedite the city’s rehabilitation. While 75% of the USD1.39
billion reconstruction funding requirement and USD130.64 million
humanitarian assistance has been raised for Marawi, the government has
yet to start the city’s rehabilitation; and instead they are busy negotiating
a good deal with Chinese companies. Atar also lamented that the master
development plan for the MAA was “rammed into our throats” and that the
rehabilitation would be carried out by Chinese contractors as it would mean
hiring of Chinese workers, citing the case of offshore gaming operations in
the country.
“Months after the liberation of Marawi, no groundbreaking happened

because they [the Task Force Bangon Marawi] were busy talking with
the Chinese-led consortium to rehabilitate the city through a joint
venture agreement,” said Drieza Liningding, chair of the Marawi-based
civic organization Moro Consensus Group, in a March 20 interview. “ It
consumed a lot of time [that delayed the start of rehabilitation at Ground
Zero].”
The locals also protested the President’s prioritization of gifting the AFP
with another military camp, costing Php 400 million, in the former city
hall site. This only indicates how the government intends to maintain if
not intensify the military’s presence in Marawi City. “Though they’re [the
Islamist groups] only a handful, they continue to be a threat because they
are still there,” according to AFP Chief Gen. Benjamin Madrigal.
By late May 2019, a year and a half since the “liberation” of Marawi and
under two years of military rule in the whole island of Mindanao, the
Commission on Audit has found that only Php 10,000 of the Php 36 million
aid has been used (and for only one Marawi siege survivor). According
to the International Committee of the Red Cross, more than a hundred
thousand people are unable to return to their homes in the city.
Brace yourselves
Clearly, the ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos appears to be ‘reincarnated’

and Martial Law reintroduced in a more monstrous and ‘creative’ manner –
from Martial Law in Mindanao to the nationwide “drug war,” from police
and military appointments to civilian posts to the shuffling of agencies
and putting them under the wings of these military appointees. And these
advance the interests of those who make profit out of poor people’s lives.
The discourse on how the Philippine police and military are trained to
work and sacrifice under harsh conditions should be re-examined. Neither
the President nor the army itself ever lifted a finger nor uttered a word to
defend Philippine sovereignty over the contested territories and resources
of the West Philippine Sea. The rampant violations in the continuing
course of the “war on drugs,” that worked as a war on the poor, remain a
striking issue. An aftermath of displacement, lost livelihoods, homes and
lives among Moro peoples, not to mention the militarization of indigenous
people’s communities – all of which are violation of Moro and indigenous
peoples’ rights – continue to haunt Mindanao’s affected communities.These
“internal looking animals,” as Custodio calls them, have a long history and
a long list of extrajudicial killings and other crimes against the poor – and
under Duterte they don’t even need a nationwide Martial Law to do any
of these.
The president admitted that he loves the police and military because they
do not debate orders, they just deliver. When the President utters the words
“kill them all” in a speech, these are taken as an order, as law, implemented
without any delay, as the drug war clearly exemplifies (unlike a bill to
increase wages adequate to living standards, which only collects dust and
never gets enacted in the legislature). In both Marawi and Boracay, we
have seen how people were displaced, never consulted, neglected, and
pre-empted from resisting, as the government negotiates a good deal with
businesses on how to “rehabilitate” or ‘“rebuild” these areas.
And with the recently concluded midterm elections, one ridden with
transparency and credibility issues, that installed former Philippine National
Police chief and “drug war” lead Ronaldo “Bato” dela Rosa in the Senate,
peoples and their organizations brace themselves for the further legalization
and glorification of state and state-instigated violence, and more importantly,
to do what it takes in defense of people’s rights from a larger wave of attacks.
We, the people can only rely on our own strength.
References
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WITNESSING FOR RIGHTS AND JUSTICE
AMID TYRANNY
CHURCH WORKERS UNDER ATTACK IN THE ERA OF
OPLAN TOKHANG AND KAPAYAPAAN
By Ivan Phell Enrile
C hurch workers play an important role in many Filipino communities.

They provide services and build infrastructure to help marginalized
communities that the government fails to reach. In some places, they function
as first responders in emergency situations. They help communities realize
and claim their rights by building their capacity to organize and mobilize.
In the era of the so-called “war on drugs” through Oplan Tokhang and
so-called “counterinsurgency” of Oplan Kapayapaan, church workers face
increasing peril. In 2017, 72-year old retired priest Fr. Marcelito “Tito”
Paez from the Diocese of San Jose City, Nueva Ecija was gunned down
after facilitating the release from prison of peasant organizer and political
prisoner Rommel Tucay, who was detained at a provincial jail. In 2018, the
well-loved Our Lady of Sion missionary Sister Patricia Fox was expelled
from the country. The long serving Australian missionary and human rights
advocate earned the ire of President Rodrigo Duterte for joining fact-
finding and solidarity missions among peasant and workers’ communities in
the southern island of Mindanao.
At the root of Duterte’s conflict with the church is his desire to stamp out
all obstructions to his tyrannical rule. It does not sit well with him that
some of the church hierarchy, along with the broader civil society and
peoples’ movements, have spoken against his controversial banner policies
such as “federalism,” charter change, and his deadly “war on drugs.”
60 Witnessing for rights and justice amid tyranny
Missionaries under attack
The Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP), an organization of

religious women and men, priests from different congregations, and lay
workers, was formed in 1969. For 50 years, RMP has conducted mission
work among poor farmers, agricultural workers, indigenous peoples and
fisherfolk. RMP facilitates the rural integration of seminarians and the
religious to commit themselves to support the rural poor, conducts capacity
building activities among community organizations, and provides services
such as education and health and training on livelihood, human rights,
climate change mitigation, and sustainable agriculture.
RMP is no stranger to vilification and witch-hunting by state forces. In the

Philippines, red-tagging of grassroots workers, including health workers,
scientists, and missionaries, comes with the territory.
But the persecution against RMP has escalated under the Duterte regime.
RMP-Northern Mindanao particularly has been subjected to intense red-
tagging and harassment by the police and the military.
On February 22, 2019, at around 10:30 am, a suspected military agent

handed two brown envelopes to the security guard of the Philtown
Hotel in Cagayan de Oro City where an assembly of local human rights
organization was being held. The envelopes contained flyers that listed
down organizations, RMP included, as supposed “fronts” of the Communist
Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing the New People’s Army
(NPA). The flyers accused RMP members as “communist sisters/nuns who
finance the NPA”.
The following day, February 23, news reports surfaced about a complaint
filed at the United Nations (UN) by Vicente Agdamag, deputy director
general of the Philippines' National Security Council, against RMP. The
report, which was submitted to the Office of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights in Geneva charged RMP with trafficking children of
indigenous peoples.
The accusation was in relation to the mass evacuation of Lumad families,

including children, owing to the military conflict between government
forces and communist rebels, beginning in 2018. RMP helped in evacuating
schoolchildren from Lumad schools in Mindanao threatened with military
attack. The military accuses that these schools, including those operated by
RMP in Mindanao, are being used to propagate communism and to train

NPAs.
RMP also recently found itself in the list of NGOs the government wanted
to block from European Union funding, for accusations of channeling funds
to the CPP and NPA.
RMP assails the military for these false accusations. The schools are part of
the Philippine Education System’s Alternative Learning System (ALS) and
some have permits granted by the Department of Education. Few others,
however, are denied permits not because they have not met the requirements,
but as part of the continuing repression of indigenous peoples’ rights.
“We are not a communist organization or a communist front. We are not

financing terrorist activities. Our projects are all well-documented, audited
and accounted for,” according to Sister Elen Belardo, national coordinator
of RMP. “Our tribal schools in Mindanao is an effort to reach those
communities too far away from regular schools. Through them, Lumad
children have access to education that the government has not been able to
provide,” she added.
The filing of the report raises alarm bells, Belardo said, "as it can be used as
justification to go after rural missionaries, priests, sisters and lay workers, and
so we urge our fellow Christians to condemn these preposterous accusations
and echo the call to end the attack against rural poor and peace advocates."
The Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines (AMRSP),

one of the mission partners of RMP and which represents 327 religious
congregations, condemns “the continuous barrage of malicious allegations"
against RMP. The association echoes Belardo’s concern, saying that
red-tagging is "inimical to democracy" and "in its most extreme ... can
lead to warrantless arrest, detention without charges, torture, enforced
disappearances and extrajudicial killings."
In March 2019, RMP raised their concerns before the Commission

on Human Rights. They also filed a complaint at the Joint Monitoring
Committee of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP)
and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the body
tasked to monitor and investigate human rights abuses of security forces and
communist rebels.
62 Witnessing for rights and justice amid tyranny
The complaints asserted the legality of the organization and the importance
of its missionary work. These also highlighted the government’s non-
implementation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for
Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, with active government
campaigns and policies that are directly inimical to human rights.
The RMP also emphasized that they will not be kept silent regarding matters
especially those concerning their Christian missionary commitment.
The Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines also

issued on April 8 a statement lauding RMP’s mission work: “Fifty years
of missionary work speaks for the integrity of the Rural Missionaries of
the Philippines. Moreover, fifty years of continued presence in the most
forgotten places in the Philippines, to accompany the marginalized and
poorest farmers and indigenous peoples, is by itself a testimony of the
fervent commitment of the religious and the Catholic Church to be living
witnesses to the good news of just peace and equity.”
The attacks are not exclusive to the Catholic faithful. The Iglesia Filipina
Independiente, also known as the Aglipayan Church, has also reported cases
of harassment of its ministers and church workers by state security and
agents.
Deacon Allan Khen Apus of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) and
an active member of the local chapter of Promotion of Church People’s
Response (PCPR) received a warning from a military agent telling him to
stop from his human rights work and that he is being put under surveillance.
Apus said the man managed to get his number and bribed him to accept
allowances through an urban poor assistance project of Malacañang.
"I learned that I was targeted for providing aid to the Moro evacuees in the
International Solidarity Mission in Marawi,” according to Apus. “The man
offered to meet with me in restaurants and talk to me, but I refused because
I did not know him. I also refused the rice aid and cash because if we had
accepted it, who knew what could have happened," he added.
For Reverend Roland Abejo, an IFI priest and chairperson of PCPR-

Northern Mindanao, the bribe "is an obvious ploy to force progressive
individuals and organizations to surrender".
Abejo said that the move serves "to further intimidate and silence the
church people in advancing the work of the liberation of God’s people.”
He also recognizes that “[t]here are many other cases of violations against
church workers, such as those being experienced by the lay co-workers of
the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines in the region.” And that this is
part of an alarming trend, a “series of events [against church personnel and
workers which] underscore the culture of impunity among state forces in
committing human rights violations under President Duterte’s Martial Law
[in Mindanao]," Abejo said.
Fulfilling the faith imperative
Church workers in the Philippines have a long history of participation

in grassroots advocacy and struggle. The history of many church peoples’
movements is a history of church peoples responding to the call of history
for justice and social transformation. Indeed, more and more church workers
are expected to heed the signs of the times as the crisis intensifies.
The Duterte regime is expected to launch more vicious attacks as it is

increasingly unmasked and isolated for its real anti-people character. Rights
violations are expected to escalate, including against church workers. The
continued assertion of church workers in the face of persecution to fulfill
their faith imperative to help the oppressed and marginalized should
continue to inspire the broad democratic movement of all sectors struggling
against Duterte’s terror and tyranny.
CYBER-CENSORSHIP: SILENCING THE
PHILIPPINE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA
by Meg Yarcia
Alternative media is being silenced in the Philippines.
S ince December last year, the websites of Altermidya, Bulatlat, Kodao

Productions, and Pinoy Weekly have been made repeatedly inaccessible
to page visitors, following a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS)
attacks.
To readers closely following developments in the country, the shutdown of

these portals meant being deprived of critical reportage, the kind that could
only come from independent media organizations.
Well-funded, state-sanctioned
The attacks, according to Sweden-based media watchdog Qurium Media

Foundation, employ sophisticated, multi-pronged techniques that bear
every proof of generous funding.
From behind a highly secure virtual private network and using thousands of
computers, a combination of human and bot action swarmed the websites
with bogus traffic– 40,000 times the normal load, in the case of Bulatlat.
The attackers also targeted particular pages, and the search engine, using the
keywords “XD” and “Duterte.”
According to Bulatlat’s associate editor Prof. Danilo Arao, the attacks

coincided with the publication of articles opposing the government’s push
66 Cyber-censorship: Silencing the Philippine alternative media
to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility, and reports on the

release of National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace
panel consultant Rafael Baylosis, and the protests condemning the murder
of NDFP consultant Randy Felix Malayao.
Moreover, similarly targeted were portals of organizations known for their

progressive stance on issues: Arkibong Bayan, Manila Today, the National
Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), Bagong Alyansang
Makabayan, Karapatan, and IBON Foundation.
The pattern, the alternative media groups opine, point to state-sanctioned

operations.
“The Duterte regime is using every means to silence dissent, criticism, and
free expression: from threats, incarceration, to killings, to cyber warfare. The
main target of this latest assault are the alternative media that mostly via
online disseminate reports and views on events and issues that are rarely
covered, if at all, by the dominant media,” Ronalyn Olea explains, in a
pooled editorial later published at the Bulatlat website. Olea adds that “the
goal is to deny a public hungry for information the reports and stories that
it needs to understand what is happening in a country besieged by lies and
disinformation.”
Alternative media and democracy
This attempt to shut down alternative media is nothing new. An obvious

target for repressive States throughout history and across the world,
independent media organizations are known for small operations that lack
the patronage and protection of powers-that-be. But precisely because of
this, they are able to lend voice to the grassroots, publishing analyses critical
of the elite-led status quo, and stories no one else would.
In the Philippines, where top media establishments are owned by families

with important stakes in big business, it is the alternative media groups that
can truly take on the role of the Fourth Estate, keeping democracy in check,
and holding the government and corporate actors accountable.
But the attacks have notably intensified in the past months, in the crucial
period before the 2019 polls season. The mid-term election was a supposed
performance appraisal for an administration that faces growing unrest over
its leader’s many failures, and the electoral process was wracked by concerns
of credibility and transparency.
Duterte has been unable to deliver on his promises to end poverty and
hunger, to eliminate corruption in the government, to provide more and
better employment opportunities for Filipinos, to solve the roots of the
drug problem, to bring peace in Mindanao. Instead, in the past three years,
Filipinos bore witness to a war not on drugs but on the poor, a tax reform
law that is harshest to those in the margins, the continued practice of
contractualization of labor, and the destruction of communities amid state-
sponsored violence in Mindanao, which has been under extended Martial
Law.
Red-tagging
It is also worth mentioning that the attacks come at a time of changing

patterns of media consumption: more Filipinos today are getting their
news online, especially through social media. And amid what seem to be
government efforts to shut down independent news sources, its own news
institutions have become purveyors of false, malicious information.
Instead of meaningfully addressing economic and political grievances,

Duterte’s information bureau resorts to red-tagging — a practice reminiscent
of the McCarthyist witch-hunt in the United States during the 1950s. The
tactic is simple: just call each critic a Communist, or a destabilizer.
For example, Malacañang spokesperson Salvador Panelo presented a

matrix that point to known journalists and media groups, including Inday
Espina-Varona, Ellen Tordesillas, the National Union of Journalists of the
Philippines, and Vera Files, as parts of an ouster plot. Besides distracting the
public from the many legitimate issues being raised by these journalists,
the matrix directly puts the entities in harm’s way, making them the target
of Duterte’s rabid supporters, including gun-toting ones in the police and
military. These are the same people who have been documented to shoot
people in cold blood and in broad daylight, with their list of victims including
children and the elderly, and, in particularly heartbreaking examples, a boy
68 Cyber-censorship: Silencing the Philippine alternative media
who could not walk, and a teenager who was begging for mercy because
he had school exams the next day.
Not surprisingly, the Philippines has been ranked as one of the most
dangerous places in the world for journalists, in what is an indictment of its
supposed democracy.
Fighting cyber-censorship
Following the attacks, the groups and their allies have joined hands to fight
what they called cyber-censorship.
The alternative media groups have lodged complaints with and staged
protests against the Department of Information and Communications
Technology, which has been mostly unresponsive.
In late March, Altermidya, Kodao Productions, and Pinoy Media Center

also filed civil cases against IP Converge Data Services, Inc., and Suniway
Group of Companies at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court. These two
companies were found, per Qurium’s sleuthing, to have been the sources of
the attacks. Mainstream media sites have also reported on the developments,
calling the nefarious activities an attack on press freedom.
For their part, Qurium has been mirroring the targeted websites under its
Operation Collateral Freedom, which circumvents technological censorship
by duplicating the censored websites using the servers of the internet giants.
“Authoritarian regimes cannot block access to the mirrors without the
‘collateral damage’ of restricting their own access to the services of these
Internet companies,” Qurium says.
Meanwhile, the alternative media groups invite people to help protect

democracy by supporting alternative journalism: “We enjoin everyone
from all walks of life to unite against, to expose, and to work together in
stopping the attacks against all media. We should exhaust all means to make
those responsible accountable for their foul deeds.There are many technical
and legal remedies that can and must be pursued to combat and halt the
unabated DDoS attacks, including mirroring target websites to keep them

online.”
As alternative journalists continue to report on unabated poverty and

suffering under the Duterte government, these kinds of attacks can only be
expected to continue, and most likely even escalate. The times then call for
heightened vigilance to protect the alternative media, and along with it, the
people whose stories fill their pages.
LUMAD SCHOOLS
A STRUGGLE FOR LAND AND LEARNING
By Paul Belisario, International Indigenous Peoples’ Movement for Self-
Determination and Liberation
I n the morning of 28 April 2019, luxury cars and a helicopter circling

overhead surprised the residents living near the Tribal Filipino Program
of Surigao del Sur, Inc. (TRIFPSS) and the Alternative Learning Center
for Agricultural and Livelihood Development, Inc. (ALCADEV), two
community schools for indigenous Lumad children. After being gathered by
the military personnel encamped in the homes of civilians, everyone was met
by unexpected visitors who forcibly opened classrooms and took pictures.
Lumad community leaders decried the lack of permission and notice and
the absence of local representation, but the surprise guests continued their
unwarranted intrusion.
That morning’s commotion was led by the Office of the Presidential Adviser
on the Peace Process (OPAPP), Indigenous People’s Peace Panel of OPAPP
and the Committee on Indigenous Cultural Communities and Indigenous
Peoples (CICCIP). The visit came as a surprise, but its reason is an old and
tired story for the Lumad, that is, to find proof that the schools are training
grounds for insurgents, particularly the New People’s Army (NPA) and
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). There are “significant data and
information” from the Office of the House Speaker and National Security
Adviser to link the schools and the rebels, according to the CICCIP.
But the obvious link for the Lumad organization Malahutayong Pakigbisog
Alang sa Sumusunod (MAPASU) is that investigators are heavily assisted
by 75th and 401st Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army and even
by paramilitary forces called Magahat-Bagani. Its leader, Marcos Bocales,
has been identified by students and residents of allegedly being involved
72 Lumad Schools: A Struggle for Land and Learning
in killing the ALCADEV executive director in 2015. Repeatedly, Lumad

students and residents have been forcibly evacuated from their homes due
to heavy military occupation of the 75th and 401st battalion.
In the whole island of Mindanao, now under an extended Martial Law,

ancestral territories where Lumad schools are located are also hotspots
of corporate mining, energy, logging and plantation projects. Caught in
a crossfire of state military combat operations, private business’ armed
groups and indigenous peoples (IP) defending their ancestral lands, Lumad
communities including their schools are currently under vicious attacks.
The Lumad school
With vast land and rich natural resources, the people of Mindanao remain
one of the poorest in the country with the highest poverty incidence
among families.1 The indigenous Lumad of Mindanao living in the remotest
forests and mountains, comprising 61% of around 14 to 17 million IP in
the Philippines, are also among the poorest and most challenged in terms
of access to basic social services.2 According to Save Our School Network,
9 out of 10 Lumad children lack access to education.3
Thus, Lumad schools were brought about by the state’s inability to reach
Lumad villages and extend social services, like education. Now, around 219
Lumad schools in four regions in Mindanao are established with the efforts
of the Lumad peoples, church and civil society groups.4 Eighty-five of these
schools have been forcibly closed down.
Before the Lumad schools, children needed to travel 20 kilometers or

more to go to schools in town centers. Burdened by the high cost of
transportation, food, lodging, and also the discriminatory treatment against
them as ‘second-class citizens’, many parents and students opted to drop out.
The lack of access to education in Lumad communities make them more

vulnerable to corporate business ventures entering their ancestral domains,
which also cause division among community members.
1 http://www.psa.gov.ph/poverty-press-releases/nid/138411
2 https://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/fashion/230834-dispute-erupts-new-york-fur-ban-proposal
3 https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/178181-infographic-lumad-indigenous-peoples
4 http://salupongan.org/save-our-schools-1
Some of the Lumad Schools under Attacka

CARAGA
Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood
Development (ALCADEV)
Tribal Filipino Program of Surigao Sur (TRIFPSS)
NORTHERN MINDANAO
Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao Region’s
Literacy and Numeracy Schools for Indigenous Children
SOCCSKSARGEN
Center for Lumad Advocacy and Services, Inc. (CLANS)
SOUTHERN MINDANAO
Salugpongan Ta Tanu Igkanogon Community Learning Center Inc.
(STTICLC)
Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation, Inc. Academy (MISFI)
Assumption Interfaith Academy Foundation, Inc. (AIAFI)
a https://www.bulatlat.com/2017/09/18/alliance-lumad-schools-holds-first-national-confab/
These challenges push the Lumad schools to provide an education that

will uplift the lives of indigenous youth by empowering them through
knowledge of protecting their ancestral lands and asserting their right to
self-determination.5 It also aims to provide an education relevant to their
culture and needs by offering academic, technical-vocational and alternative
farming skills in coordination with the Department of Education (DepEd),
local government units, public and private schools, and socio-civic
organizations.6
For its efforts and performance, Lumad schools have been recognized as
Most Outstanding Literacy Program awardee in CARAGA and 5th Most
Outstanding Literacy Program awardee in the Philippines (ALCADEV).
DepEd’s Indigenous Peoples Education Office used to support Lumad
school’s teaching approach.They said that IP education needs a turn-around
in perspective, veering away from the “colonial view that education should
5 https://misfi-phil.org/misfi-academy/
6 https://alcadev.wordpress.com/about/
be used to ‘civilize’ and assimilate them,” and that it must not take them
away from their culture and communities.7
Attack on schools, attack on rights
As campaigns to educate the Lumad grow in communities and villages, it

became inevitable for them to understand the intersection of their historical
discrimination and their present marginalized situation to the increasing
violations of their basic rights, democratic freedoms and rightful defense of
their land, life and culture.
But the path in bringing Lumad youth and communities the education
they need has been hampered by growing layers of obstacles.
A bomb threat was uttered by President Rodrigo Duterte to the Lumad

schools in July 2017 during his State of the Nation Address. The threat was
made because, allegedly, Lumad schools are teaching the IP how to rebel
against the government.8 The Commission on Human Rights Chairperson
Chito Gascon reacted that bombing public facilities runs counter to
International Humanitarian Law, and urged the government to deliver
instead socio-economic services to the IP communities and protect their
ancestral territories.9
Grade School Lumad student Joly Samad of MISFI decried the President’s
pronouncement for it only aggravated the already precarious state of Lumad
schools. For the Lumad students, such statement seems like a go-signal to
the military and paramilitaries, already encroaching on some schools, to
further attack and endanger their lives.
Among other allegations thrown by top armed forces officials to the Lumad
schools are that they teach students how to hold and fire a gun, how to be
disrespectful to the government, and how to sing the “rebel’s version” of
the Philippine national anthem.10 Such accusations, all under investigation
and remain unproven in any court, were also echoed by so-called Lumad
leaders working closely with the military and were used to forcibly lock
down some of the Lumad schools.
7 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/07/11/1831716/lumad-schools-even-holding-class-struggle
8 http://nine.cnnphilippines.com/news/2017/07/25/Duterte-threatens-to-bomb-Lumad-schools.html
9 https://chr.gov.ph/bombing-of-lumad-schools-against-intl-humanitarian-law-chr/
10 https://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2018/12/deped-davao-norte-chief-says-no-closure-order-
issued-vs-lumad-schools/
Teachers of Salugpongan Ta ‘Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Center

(STTICLCI) in Talaingod, another Lumad school in the province of Davao
Del Norte facing similar military pressure, laments that branding the Lumad
schools as “NPA schools” is tantamount to undermining the efforts of civil
society groups and Lumad communities in addressing the issue of access to
education.
Volunteer teachers risk their lives
The allegations and threats are not empty words, for these resulted to the
killings of several Lumad leaders. In September 2015, Emerito Samarca,
Executive Director of the ALCADEV was stabbed to death in a classroom
by Magahat-Bagani paramilitary forces who accused him of being an NPA
leader who radicalized students against impending mining concessions in
ancestral lands. Dionel Campos, MAPASU Chairperson, and his cousin
Bello Sinzo were also believed to have been killed that day in front of
ALCADEV students and Lumad-Manobo residents in Lianga town.
According to witnesses, the brutal killings happened while the Army’s 36th
Infantry Battalion and Special Forces watched.11
Given the remoteness and difficulty in facilities and resources, teachers of

Lumad schools are mostly volunteers or development workers. As full-time
educators for the Lumad, they have also been targets of military and state
harassment and attacks. 2017 reports of Salupongan International showed
that six Parent, Teacher and Community Association (PTCA) members of
Lumad schools have been killed by suspected military elements, while 61
were victims of frustrated killings. Almost 500 PTCA, volunteer teachers
and Lumad students were vilified and red-tagged by state forces, and 21 are
illegally detained or charged with trumped-up charges.12
Lumad school teachers have faced intimidation and red-tagging on the

ground and even online through posters with their faces accusing them as
NPA members and recruiters.13 In February 2018, seven teacher of CLANS
and five PTCA members were named in an arrest warrant for allegedly
ambushing a platoon of a Marine Battalion in March 2017.14
11 https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/29031/Business/Alleged-militiamen-kill-3-lumad-leaders-in-
Surigao-Sur
12 http://salupongan.org/save-our-schools-1
13 https://www.bulatlat.com/2018/06/05/lumad-schools-face-harassments-new-school-year-opens/
14 http://www.interaksyon.com/breaking-news/2018/02/08/119257/lumad-teacher-nabbed-in-sultan-
kudarat-for-criminal-raps-over-2017-npa-marine-clash/
Teacher Jolita in Jaila

Teacher Jolita Tolino has been in jail for more than 400 days this May
2019.
CLANS’s Teacher Jolita, as fondly called by her students, is an indigenous

Dulangan Manobo, who was among those arrested in Sultan Kudarat
in February 2017 due to false accusations of murder and frustrated
murder. The Marine Batallion Landing Team 2 (MBLT 2) and Kalamansig
Police arrested Teacher Jolita together with six other teachers and PTCA
members, saying they were among the rebels who clashed with the
marines in Sultan Kudarat.
Tolino was indeed assigned in a CLANS school in Kalamansig, Sultan

Kudarat, but Geming Andrea Alonzo, CLANS Executive Director, has
refuted the Marine’s claim by showing proof that Tolino was attending
a Teachers’ Evaluation and Curriculum Development on the date of the
rebel clash.
For many years, Tolino has also been an active campaigner against
plantation and mining companies entering the Dulangan Manobo lands,
particularly the David M. Consunji Inc. As a teacher, she has been strong
in emphasizing to her indigenous students their right to territory and self-
determination as IP.
Tolino’s father and tribal leader, Pakingan Gantangan, died in July 2018
from a heart attack while holding a protest at the Department of
Education to reopen the tribal schools in their community. In 2018,
authorities have closed at least 33 of the 50 CLANS schools following
reports that its permit was illegal and it was acting as NPA rebel front.
The arrest of Tolino happened when Martial Law was declared in

Mindanao after the extremist terrorist attacks in the Muslim city of
Marawi. For Alonzo, military rule has encouraged chauvinism in the state
forces by treating civilians as enemies of the state, subjecting teachers,
IP leaders and even students to intimidation, threats and illegal arrests.
a https://www.philstar.com/nation/2018/02/08/1785880/lumad-group-seeks-free-illegally-
arrested-teacher-sultan-kudarat
Military checkpoints also target teachers, demanding their identifications

when leaving and entering their schools,15 while some teachers were
illegally brought to camps for interrogation.16 In some instances, the military
uses alleged TRIFFPS teachers who surrender as NPA rebels17 or threatens
teachers to speak against the Lumad school.
Plundering the Lumad Lands
Lumad schools, organizations and several civil society movements have

voiced strong concern not only on the continuous attacks on Lumad schools,
but also on the economic interests behind the intensifying militarization
and persecution in ancestral territories.
The Pantaron range that stretches the Davao region to North Cotabato
and Bukidnon houses the headwaters of major rivers in Mindanao. It is
also the location of Lumad Manobo’s ancestral lands and Lumad schools
STTICLCI. STTICLCI is actually named from the Lumad formation
Salugpongan Ta’tanu Igkanugon or “Unity of People to Defend the
Ancestral Land” that united 83 Manobo tribes of Talaingod to defend the
ancestral domain against encroachment of the logging company Alcantara
and Sons (Alsons).18
Plans to build a PhP 9-billion (USD 200 million) mining hi-way that leads
up to the Pantaron Range have been linked to the increasing military
encampment in Lumad communities and schools. Such plans have also
resulted to further division in Lumad communities as state forces beef
up military-organized paramilitary group Alamara to counter progressive
leaders against business interests in the Lumad lands.
Soldiers were reportedly going around the community asking people to

sign a document belying the statement of Salugpongan spokesperson Datu
Duluman Dausay, who said that on Oct. 16, drunken soldiers encamped at
the DepEd school fired in the direction of STTICLCI.
15 https://www.bulatlat.com/2018/06/05/lumad-schools-face-harassments-new-school-year-opens/
16 https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/07/11/1831716/lumad-schools-even-holding-class-
struggle
17 https://www.facebook.com/CLANSLCS/photos/a.1869732903044433/2334721309878921/?type=
3&theater
18 https://www.bulatlat.com/2014/12/01/the-lumad-school-on-pantaron-range/
In the CARAGA region, potential petroleum and coal mining and other
extractive interests in the rich Andap Valley Complex, an area that straddles
the towns of San Miguel, San Agustin, Marihatag, Cagwait,Tago and Lianga,
is seen as the reason of the increase of military presence in the Lumad
communities.19
Anti-mining group Caraga Watch said that big extractive companies have
been wanting to start their projects in the Andap Valley Complex, but was
continuously opposed by indigenous communities. Among the reported
mining corporations are Benguet Corp., Abacus Coal Exploration and
Development Corp., Chinese-owned Great Wall Mining and Power Corp.,
ASK Mining and Exploration Corp. and CoalBlack Mining Corp.
President Rodrigo Duterte himself declared that he will choose the

investors in Andap Valley Complex as well as the opening of Lumad lands
to private investors.20 Caraga Watch highlighted how Duterte insinuated the
dislocation of the Lumad from their lands through military combats to ease
the entry of corporate ventures.21
How the military and government use force to protect big business
interests in ancestral lands can be seen in how army battalions protect the
palm oil plantation of A Brown Energy and Resources Development Inc.
(ABERDI) and subsidiary Nakeen Corporation in Opol, Misamis Oriental
and Kalabugao, Bukidnon. With the 4th Infantry Division operating in the
area under Martial Law, Lumad farmers cannot go back to farming in their
ancestral lands within the plantations.22
About 64 Lumad schools, with more than 3,000 students, operate in

Bukidnon, home to members of the seven tribes, the province’s original
inhabitants, namely, the Higaonon, Talaandig, Bukidnon, Manobo,
Matigsalug, Tigwanahon and Umayamnon.
Lumad leaders have raised that the imposition of Martial Law in Mindanao
has aggravated human rights violations against Lumad IP in Mindanao.23
19 https://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2018/07/group-says-mining-interests-behind-military-
presence-in-lumad-lands/
20 https://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2018/02/duterte-to-choose-investors-to-develop-lumad-
lands-for-oil-palm-mining/
21 http://philippinereporter.com/2018/08/10/coal-mining-behind-militarization-and-displacement-of-
lumad-communities/
22 https://news.mongabay.com/2019/03/it-is-open-season-right-now-martial-law-intensifies-in-the-
philippines/
23 https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/178319-martial-law-affects-lumad-indigenous-peoples-mindanao
From stricter ID search even for IP, to bomber planes hovering over villages,
the Lumad continue to lose their lands as they are forced to evacuate in fear
for their lives and safety.
Under Martial Law, all activities must have an approval of the local
government, police and military. Also, civilian’s petition to writ of habeas
corpus is suspended when one is accused of rebellion or threat of invasion.
Thus, this safeguard against arbitrary military action is lost when the military
accuses one as a rebel or an insurgent.24
The iron hand of Martial Law in Mindanao has punished the Lumad people
standing against local and foreign corporations taking away their ancestral
lands, and plundering the natural resources in these territories. Going
hand in hand with the anti-insurgency campaign of the government, the
military, paramilitary and the whole state machinery is now acting together
to suppress any dissent and opposition, lumping them with rebels and
insurgents, and forwarding the interests of businesses.
This inter-agency and multi-faceted governmental approach or the “whole-

of-nation approach” versus insurgent forces have actively engaged OPAPP,
Department of Social Welfare and Development, DepEd, Department of
Interior and Local Government, with the Armed Forces of the Philippines
as its lead implementer, to close or deny permit to Lumad schools, arrest
suspected rebels, red-tag Lumad teachers and leaders, and facilitate military
encampment in Lumad schools.
A fight to learn and live
Lumad’s history is rich with peoples’ resistance and heroes in defence of

rights and land. For the Lumad schools, to fight for their education and go
to school every day has been a challenge and a matter of life and death.
Evacuating repeatedly from their schools and villages to the city center,
the Lumad pushes to keep the Lumad youth’s learning through the Lumad
Bakwit (a vernacular for “evacuate”) School. The Bakwit School has been
the refugee classroom in response to increasing militarization and closing of
Lumad schools in Mindanao.
24 https://www.rappler.com/move-ph/178319-martial-law-affects-lumad-indigenous-peoples-mindanao
Through a nationwide campaign to sustain the studies of more than 3,000

Lumad students affected by Martial Law’s havoc to their schools, students
in the Bakwit School travel to Metro Manila and capital cities to show
the situation of Lumad schools in Mindanao. Under the Save Our Schools
Network, churches, seminaries, universities and colleges open up to Lumad
students to house their learning.
In UCCP Haran Center in Davao City and at the Tandag Sports Complex
in Surigao del Sur province, the evacuation centers of Lumad families also
house Bakwit Schools to let the Lumad youth continuously go to school.
The Bakwit School has also been the fruitition of a national caravan of the
IP in Manila, which started in 2015 after the killing of ALCADEV Executive
Director Samarca. Around 700 Lumad from all over Mindanao travelled to
Manila, mostly by land, to seek justice for human rights violations, and
to defend Lumad schools, Lumad communities, and ancestral land and
resources.
As the Lumad schools remain closed, Bakwit Schools remain in evacuation

sites, roving from one home to another, students carrying their calls
everywhere - “Save our schools! Stop Lumad killings!” As fleeing became
their resort to save their lives, Bakwit Schools continue to urge the
government to withdraw military presence in their communities so that
they can return to their communities. For the Lumad Schools that are still
open, although threatened by closure due to low enrolment brought by fear
of military harassment, volunteer teachers remain resolved25 and inspired by
the enduring determination of students, families and communities to learn
and defend their lands and rights.
25 https://ph.theasianparent.com/lumad-children-uphold-rights-education
TERMINATION OF PEACE UNDER DUTERTE’S
BLOODY REGIME
By Jamaica Jian Gacoscosim and Danielle Templonuevo
A t the start of the Duterte administration, the peace negotiations

were revived after different obstacles faced in past administrations.
Labeling himself a “leftist” and a “socialist” president, Duterte gave way
to the continuation of the talks between the National Democratic Front
of the Philippines (NDFP), which represents the Communist Party of
the Philippines (CPP) and its armed New People’s Army (NPA), and the
Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP). This made the
impression that the Philippine government is interested in addressing the
socio-economic and historical root causes of the armed conflict in the
country.
Peace talks in the Philippines
Since 2016, four rounds of formal peace negotiations with the NDFP were
reached until they faced stumbling blocks. Duterte unilaterally terminated
the peace talks after the 3rd round of negotiations in Rome, Italy in 2017 and
tagged the CPP-NPA-NDFP as “terrorists”. Upon reaching the 4th round,
the government continued to delay and make unsound conditionalities for
the peace talks.1
By issuing the Proclamation No. 360 in November 2017, the Philippine

government terminated the scheduled 5th round of negotiations and
by March 2019, the Duterte administration announced the permanent
1 Lorelei Covero. Peace talks under the Duterte Government: Road to Peace? In State Terror & Tyranny
in the Philippines: US backed Oplan Kapayapaan & Duterte’s Attack on People’s Rights. 2018.http://
iboninternational.org/sites/ibon/files/resources/StateTerror%26Tyranny_final.pdf
82 Termination of Peace under Duterte’s bloody regime
termination of peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDFP. The former seeks

to focus on localized negotiations under the declaration of Executive Order
No. 70 or the adoption of the whole-of-nation approach and the creation
of a national task force to “end local communist conflict.”2
Peace talks between the Philippine government and the NDFP is an

essential part of addressing the root causes of armed conflict in the country.
The Philippines has one of the longest running revolutions in the world,
which persists because of the government’s historical failure to provide
the needs of the people and to address the root causes of poverty. Dismal
domestic conditions drive marginalized sectors to engage in armed struggle
in the countryside.
Peace negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP create possibilities for
both parties to come to binding agreements that address the issues of the
people and bring forth their interests. Examples of these agreements are
The Hague Joint Declaration, the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity
Guarantees (JASIG) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for
Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).
Agreements on socio-economic reforms (such as national industrialization,
agrarian reform, and foreign economic policy), political and constitutional
reforms, and then cessation of hostilities would have been the agenda for
the next rounds of negotiations if these significantly progressed. However,
these subsequent agenda remain in the dark with the termination of peace
talks under the current administration.
In every peace process, there are peace consultants that represent the parties
involved in order to properly discuss and resolve issues. They serve as key
links in the negotiations as they represent their parties while making
sure that the genuine interests of the people are considered. They are
responsible in bringing forth grassroots sectors’ demands and hammering
out agreements for necessary reforms. Under the JASIG, signed in 1995,
peace consultants should have immunity and protection and should not
be subject to harassments and arrest. However, the Duterte administration
continues to harass, arrest and even kill peace consultants of the NDFP as
the administration aims to weaken and halt armed struggle without systemic
changes in the economy and politics.
2 Abs-cbn news. Duterte announces ‘permanent termination’ of peace talks with Reds. https://news.abs-
cbn.com/news/03/21/19/duterte-announces-permanent-termination-of-peace-talks-with-reds
Continuing the witch-hunt
“Kill them. Destroy them.”This statement was blurted out by Duterte in his
speech in Mindanao to encourage the soldiers to intensify the operations
against whomever it deems as “terrorists” in the country. He gave them
the assurance that the government has their backs in such operations,
and encouraged state armed forces to neither stop nor surrender in the
encounters.3 Under Duterte, the Philippine government also continued
moves to brand communist fighters as “terrorists.”
The Philippine government has been very active in implementing plans

which aim to hunt down and crush leftist groups, typically blurring
distinctions between armed fighters and legal organizations.
The Marcos administration, before it was overthrown by the people, had

been very much active in hunting down and killing those associated with
the left. During Corazon Aquino’s presidency, farmers who marched to the
presidential palace were shot by state forces instead of having their pleas for
land addressed. Anti-communist paramilitary groups (like the Alsa Masa)
were encouraged by the government in areas such as Mindanao. Succeeding
administrations continued the anti-insurgency campaigns under different
names such as Oplan [Operation Plan] Bantay Laya, Oplan Bayanihan, and
the current Oplan Kapayapaan of the Duterte administration. These drove
the killings and arrests of peace consultants, activists, and human rights
defenders. Under Duterte, various organizations and individuals are “red-
tagged,” threatened, and many actually killed by the repressive government.
Karapatan, a human rights organization in the Philippines filed a complaint
at the United Nations against the government’s red-tagging.4 It highlights
that red-tagging has become more systematic than ever upon the issuance
of Executive Order No. 70.
Recently, five peace consultants were arrested with fabricated cases such as
illegal possession of firearms and trumped-up charges. These are Adelberto
Silva, Vicente Ladlad, Rey Claro Casambre, Renante Gamara5 and Rafael
Baylosis. The latter was released in January 2019 as the charge against him
3 Argyll Geducos. Duterte to soldiers: Destroy and kill terrorists. Manila Bulletin. 26 August 2018. https://
news.mb.com.ph/2018/08/26/duterte-to-soldiers-destroy-and-kill-terrorists/
4 Anne Marxze Umil. Karapatan files complaint with UN officials vs military’s red-tagging. Bulatlat. 8
April 2019. https://www.bulatlat.com/2019/04/08/karapatan-files-complaints-to-un-officials-vs-
militarys-red-tagging/
5 Raymund Villanueva. GRP agents arrest NDFP peace consultant Renante Gamara. Bulatlat. 21 March
2019. https://www.bulatlat.com/2019/03/21/grp-agents-arrest-ndfp-peace-consultant-renante-
gamara/
Box 1. Executive Order No. 70

On December 4, 2018, President Rodrigo Roa Duterte signed Executive
Order No. 70, the order that creates a national task force to “end local
communist armed conflict” in the Philippines.a It follows the earlier
adopted National Security Policy 2017-2022 under Executive Order No.
16 (s.2017). It aims to end all communist armed conflict in the country by
adapting the Whole-of-Nation approach. This approach aims to enforce
the “peace agenda” of the government. It is packaged to supposedly
address issues through the creation of a national task force by localizing
the negotiations in the conflict-affected areas.
The task force is to work closely with the local government units and
other agencies to ensure the implementation of the Whole-of-Nation
approach (i.e., making counterinsurgency a coherent policy across the
national government and local governments, also part of the framework
under Benigno Aquino III). In the section 5 of the order, it is stated that
the National Peace Framework shall include a mechanism for localized
peace engagements or negotiations and interventions that is nationally
orchestrated, directed and supervised, while being locally implemented.
Tensions and armed conflict are to be addressed locally in the affected
areas. In the current political context, this means that the government
aims to disperse so-called “peace talks” to different localities, without
considering the prior agreements for negotiations with the NDFP
in a neutral country while targeting the underground movement’s
consolidated organizational strength.
After the implementation of the order, hundreds of individuals have

been red-tagged and threatened by the military forces. Innocent farmers
were also killed mercilessly by the soldiers in Negros. In March 2019,
14 farmers from Negros Oriental were accused of being part of the
NPA and were killed in their communities.b By early 2019, at least two
hundred farmers were killed since Duterte rose to power. There was also
an increase in the number of “surrenderees” that the military claims to
be former members of the NPA. Figures of at least 1,400 surrenderees
are deemed fake by rights organizations. There are also reports that
indigenous peoples and farmers have been forced to attend meetings
and admit that they are NPA members. d The new order that attempts to
pursue local “peace negotiations,” according to former CPP chairperson
Jose Maria Sison, is rejected by the members and every committee of

the CPP.e
a Executive No. 70, s. 2018. Official Gazette. 4 December 2018. https://www.officialgazette.gov.
ph/2018/12/04/executive-order-no-70-s-2018/
b 14 farmers massacred in Negros Oriental, lawmaker says. Abs-cbn news. 30 March 2019.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/03/30/19/14-farmers-massacred-in-negros-oriental-lawmaker-
says
c Davao Today. Lumad girls held incommunicado by soldiers tell of horrors in captivity. Bulatlat.
com. 10 March 2019. https://www.bulatlat.com/2019/03/10/lumad-girls-held-incommunicado-
by-soldiers-tell-of-horrors-in-captivity/
d Rene Azue. Phil. Army slammed over ‘fake rebel surrenderees’. Panay News. 13 August 2018.
https://www.panaynews.net/phil-army-slammed-over-fake-rebel-surrenderees/
e Delfin Mallari Jr. Joma: Corrupt AFP execs earn money from 8,000 fake NPA returnees.
Inquirer.net. 28 December 2018. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1067337/joma-corrupt-afp-
execs-earn-money-from-8000-fake-npa-returnees
was dropped due to lack of evidence.6 They have been involved in the peace
negotiations in the past and are supposedly covered by the protection of the
Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees.
The prospects of progress on social and economic reforms in the peace

negotiations were shattered as the Duterte administration, with its military,
showed their true intention – to wipe out and crush progressive people’s
organizations and the underground movement, instead of addressing the
root causes of the armed struggle. This is clearly manifested in the attacks
on peace consultants and other people’s organizations.
Duterte’s war against the people
Instead of addressing the root causes of armed conflict in the country

today, the state security forces continue to harass and red-tag people in
communities and force them to surrender, just to show that the “whole
of nation” approach is working. There has been a series of mass murders
of farmers and innocent civilians tagged as members of the NPA. The
government is waging war against the poor not only through its bloody
“war on drugs” but also on the approach to wipe out all that is associated
with the left movement (real associations or otherwise). It presents the reality
that the government is not at all interested in resolving the socioeconomic
6 Anne Marxze Umil. Peace consultant released from jail. Bulatlat. 19 January 2019.https://www.bulatlat.
com/2019/01/19/peace-consultant-released-from-jail/
and political issues in the country but is only focused on crushing the CPP-
NPA-NDFP.
The GRP-NDFP negotiations exist because of the continuing armed

struggle in the country. For the past five decades, the armed struggle has
been persistent because of longstanding grievances of workers, farmers,
and other sectors. However, the government, for the past five decades has
failed to address the root cause of social unrest in the country and has
resorted instead to militarist approach without considering the underlying
socioeconomic and political problems that need to be resolved.
Extreme poverty, exploitation and oppression still exist in the rural areas
where armed conflict is prevalent and active. Landlords in rural areas
continue to exploit farmers, and deny them their right to land. Despite
the abundance of resources in the country, majority of the Filipino people
remain poor, while foreign and domestic elites, landlords, capitalists and
plundering government officials accumulate more and more profits from
the fruits of the population’s labor. Aside from extreme poverty in the rural
areas, people are also denied of basic services and face militarization in their
villages.
The prevalent economic system, where elites tied to foreign capital

continue to exploit the masses, has historically conditioned the emergence
of armed struggle. State violence is used to threaten and pacify the cries
of the people for a fair and just system, hence marginalized sectors are
driven to armed struggle for a genuine and lasting peace and democracy.
Peace talks in this regard play an important role in achieving the demands
of the people. This will not be entirely possible if the government will not
listen to people’s demands and just focus on the surrender of armed fighters
and dismantling of underground organizations without recognizing the
underlying socioeconomic and political motivations of the armed struggle.
People’s organizations play a major role in creating conditions for peace

based on social justice. The termination of peace talks under the Duterte
administration is a clear statement that the government has lost interest in
addressing the root causes of the armed struggle. Ending the peace talks
also means bleak prospects for just peace in the country under the current
administration.
References:
14 farmers massacred in Negros Oriental, lawmaker says. Abs-cbn news. 30 March 2019. https://news.abs-
cbn.com/news/03/30/19/14-farmers-massacred-in-negros-oriental-lawmaker-says
Abs-cbn news. Duterte announces 'permanent termination' of peace talks with Reds. https://news.abs-cbn.
com/news/03/21/19/duterte-announces-permanent-termination-of-peace-talks-with-reds
Covero, Lorelei. Peace talks under the Duterte Government: Road to Peace? In State Terror & Tyranny
in the Philippines: US-backed Oplan Kapayapaan & Duterte’s Attack on People’s Rights. 2018. http://
iboninternational.org/sites/ibon/files/resources/StateTerror%26Tyranny_final.pdf
Davao Today. Lumad girls held incommunicado by soldiers tell of horrors in captivity. Bulatlat.com. 10
March 2019. https://www.bulatlat.com/2019/03/10/lumad-girls-held-incommunicado-by-soldiers-
tell-of-horrors-in-captivity/
Executive No. 70, s. 2018. Official Gazette. 4 December 2018. https://www.officialgazette.gov.
ph/2018/12/04/executive-order-no-70-s-2018/
Geducos, Argyll. Duterte to soldiers: Destroy and kill terrorists. Manila Bulletin. 26 August 2018. https://
news.mb.com.ph/2018/08/26/duterte-to-soldiers-destroy-and-kill-terrorists/
Mallari, Delfin Jr. Joma: Corrupt AFP execs earn money from 8,000 fake NPA returnees. Inquirer.net. 28
December 2018. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1067337/joma-corrupt-afp-execs-earn-money-from-
8000-fake-npa-returnees
Rene Azue. Phil. Army slammed over ‘fake rebel surrenderees’. Panay News. 13 August 2018. https://www.
panaynews.net/phil-army-slammed-over-fake-rebel-surrenderees/
Umil, Anne Marxze. Karapatan files complaint with UN officials vs military’s red-tagging. Bulatlat. 8April
2019. https://www.bulatlat.com/2019/04/08/karapatan-files-complaints-to-un-officials-vs-militarys-
red-tagging/
Umil, Anne Marxze. Peace consultant released from jail. Bulatlat. 19 January 2019. https://www.bulatlat.
com/2019/01/19/peace-consultant-released-from-jail/
Villanueva, Raymund. GRP agents arrest NDFP peace consultant Renante Gamara. Bulatlat. 21 March
2019. https://www.bulatlat.com/2019/03/21/grp-agents-arrest-ndfp-peace-consultant-renante-
gamara/
RANDY MALAYAO
A WARRIOR FOR A JUST AND LASTING PEACE
When activist Randy Malayao was asked what he would feel if he could not
live to see and witness “lasting peace”, his response was “Alam mo, hindi na
mahalaga 'yon. Basta ‘yun ‘yong kailangan kasi ng bayan natin. ‘Yung panahon
ko, lilipas ‘yan. ‘Yung ‘just and lasting peace,’ hindi. Lasting peace nga eh ‘di ba?"
(You know, that’s no longer important. It’s what our nation really needs. My
time will pass, but “just and lasting peace” won’t. That’s why it’s called lasting
peace, right?).
His words above sadly came true early morning of January 30, 2019 as the
49-year-old activist was shot defenseless defenseless, asleep inside a bus on his
way to his hometown in Isabela in northern Philippines.
Randy dedicated most of his life fighting for the people and ultimately, for a just
and lasting peace.
His early years
Born in the province of Isabela, Randy Felix Malayao is the youngest in the
family. Even in his younger years, Randy was already a consistent achiever,
graduating elementary school as valedictorian and completing his secondary
education in a science high school.
He initially went to University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman for college but
later transferred to UP Visayas-Miag-Ao to pursue a degree in fisheries which
he finished in 1992.
Randy was many things in college: he was a member of the Beta Sigma
Fraternity; the founding Chairperson of the League of Filipino Students UP-
Miag-Ao Chapter; and the Chief Editor of the official student publication, Ang
Mangingisda. He also served as the Vice-President of the College Editors’ Guild
of the Philippines (CEGP) in Visayas and while on the post, he was able to
revive inactive school publications in Visayas and launch information campaigns
on social issues.
He then left Visayas in 1994 to work as a full time CEGP national office staff in
Manila.
His way back home
After years of service as a student leader and organizer, Randy decided to go

home to Cagayan Valley to help peasant and community organizations push for
the interest of farmers, address concerns on militarization in remote rural areas,

and advocate for the respect of human rights.1 He also conducted seminars on
political, economic, and human rights.
Threats he faced
Randy was wrongfully accused with the murder of Rodolfo Aguinaldo and
two other individuals; and on May 15, 2008 while on his way home, he was
abducted by members of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the
Philippines and reportedly sent a text message to a relative saying that someone
was following him before his disappearance.
He suffered from both physical and psychological torture in the hands of his
abductors while blindfolded for four days. Despite the pain and fear he was
facing at that moment, he still stood his ground and refused to tell lies just so
he can save himself. Randy’s words to his tormentors were, “Pipiliin ko na lang
na hukayin ang sarili kong libingan. Kilala ninyo ako. ‘Yung mga nalalaman ko,
dadalhin ko na lang sa hukay” (I would rather dig my own grave. You already
know me. The things I know, I will take to my grave).2
Groups including those in the international community all protested and

condemned the military as the mastermind behind Randy’s abduction. Five
days after his disappearance, he was resurfaced in the 5th Infantry Division of
the Philippine Army.3
1 Dullana, Raymond. (2019, February 02). Murdered activist Randy Malayao yearned for lasting peace.
Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/profiles/222419-profile-randy-malayao
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
Time spent in jail
After he resurfaced, he was initially detained in the Tuguegarao City Jail for
the alleged murder of Aguinaldo but was acquitted in mid-2010 due to lack
of evidence. He, however, faced another trumped-up murder charge and
was transferred to the Ilagan District Jail. He was later granted bail for lack of
evidence.
His time in prison did not stop him from serving the people. He was more
than just an inmate; he was a brother to fellow prisoners, a teacher conducting
literacy programs, an organizer of medical missions and sports, and even a
paralegal, among others.4
As a matter of fact, Randy was elected by his fellow inmates as prison governor
in both Tuguegarao and Ilagan jails. Randy even built a small library and made
newspapers available for the inmates.
Even Randy himself knew that his time in prison was not for nothing as he
himself said, “Even under detention, I bloomed.”
His fight for a just and lasting peace
Days after he resurfaced in 2008, the National Democratic Front (NDF) of the
Philippines Negotiation Panel formally declared Randy as their consultant to
the peace process with the Government of the Philippines and thus should be
free from arrest and torture under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity
Guarantees of 1995.5
Before his death, Randy was active in participating in the formal peace
negotiations between the NDF and the Philippine government under the Duterte
administration.6 He did not only spend his time as NDF peace consultant in
the Philippines but also went overseas for consultations and education. He
participated in the peace talks in Europe and had been a spokesperson during
the formal negotiations.7
The people behind his cowardly killing are wrong when they thought that his
death will stop his fight for the marginalized and oppressed. Randy Malayao’s
contribution to the revolutionary movement and NDF peace efforts will never
be forgotten and will still bloom.
4 Villanueva, Raymund. (2019, January 30). Randy Malayao: Campus Journalist and ‘fisher of men’.
Retrieved from https://www.bulatlat.com/2019/01/30/randy-malayao-campus-journalist-and-fisher-
of-men/
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
ANNEXES
Annexes 93
UN HUMAN RIGHTS EXPERTS CALL FOR

INDEPENDENT PROBE INTO PHILIPPINES
VIOLATIONS
GENEVA (7 June 2019) – UN human rights experts* today called on the

United Nations to establish an independent investigation into human rights
violations in the Philippines, citing a sharp deterioration in the situation of
human rights across the country, including sustained attacks on people and
institutions defending human rights.
“Given the scale and seriousness of the reported human rights violations we
call on the Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigation
into the human rights violations in the Philippines,” said the independent
experts, referring to the body made up of 47 UN Member States elected
by the UN General Assembly.
“We have recorded a staggering number of unlawful deaths and police

killings in the context of the so-called war on drugs, as well as killings of
human rights defenders. Very few independent and effective investigations
have taken place, independent media and journalists are threatened, the law
has been weaponised to undermine press freedom, and the independence
of the judiciary is undermined,” the experts said.
“We are extremely concerned over the high number of killings which
are being carried out across the country in an apparent climate of official,
institutional impunity.
“In the past three years, we have repeatedly brought to the attention of the
Government cases alleging a range of gross human rights violations, such
as extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, including of children,
persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, trade union and land right
activists. Those cases also included allegations of arbitrary detention, torture
or inhuman or degrading treatment, gender-based violence against women
human rights defenders, attacks against the independence of judges and
lawyers, freedoms of expression and of assembly, as well as people’s right to
94 Annexes
food and health. Sadly these cases are just the tip of the iceberg with many
more cases being reported regularly.
“It is time for the Human Rights Council to take action against these
sustained attacks on human rights defenders and independent watchdog
institutions,” the experts said.
They stressed that, in many incidents the alleged perpetrators of killings are
members of the armed forces, paramilitary groups or individuals linked to
them.
“Instead of sending a strong message that these killings and harassment

are unacceptable, there is a rising rhetoric against independent voices in
the country and ongoing intimidation and attacks against voices who are
critical of the Government, including independent media, human rights
defenders, lawyers and journalists,” said the experts.
The President has himself publicly intimidated human rights defenders,

United Nations Special Rapporteurs and even the Supreme Court judges.
He has publicly degraded women through sexist statements and has incited
violence against alleged drugs pushers and others. He has also threatened
to bomb the schools of the Lumad indigenous peoples on the island of
Mindanao.
“The Government has shown no indication that they will step up to fulfil
their obligation to conduct prompt and full investigations into these cases,
and to hold perpetrators accountable in order to do justice for victims and
to prevent reoccurrence of violations. There are now thousands of grieving
families in the Philippines. We call on the international community to do
everything possible to ensure there will be no more.”
The experts also expressed serious concerns about the decision of the
Philippines to withdraw from the International Criminal Court. “This is
the last of many actions demonstrating that the Government is seeking
to evade scrutiny and reject accountability,” they said, noting repeated
personalised attacks on independent international actors and undermining
their credibility.
Independent human rights experts appointed by the Human Rights

Council have raised their concerns with the Government of the Philippines
on 33 occasions over the last three years**.
Annexes 95
ENDS
** The UN experts have issued news releases on selected ‘communications’

as follows:
• On 6 December 2018, the Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression

called on the Philippine authorities to drop charges against online news
website Rappler and its Chief Executive, Maria Ressa;
• On 20 August 2018, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human

rights defenders; the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to
the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental
health ;and Chairperson of the Coordination Committee of the Special
Procedures urged the Philippines authorities to further action to remove
names on Government’s “terror list”;
• On 1 June 2018, the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges

and lawyers expressedgrave concerns at public threats issued against the
Philippines’ Chief Justice by the country’s President and his subsequent
dismissal;
• On 8 March 2018, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human

rights defenders; the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with
disabilities; and the Chairperson of the Coordination Committee
of the Special Procedures expressed grave concerns about terrorism
accusations levelled against the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of
indigenous peoples,Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a Philippine national;
• On 25 January 2018, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and

protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; the
Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions;
and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.
expressed serious alarm at effort to shut down independent media
outlet in the Philippines;
• On 27 December 2017, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of

human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples warned
over “massive” impact of military operations on Mindanao indigenous
peoples;
96 Annexes
• On 23 November 2017, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial,

summary or arbitrary executions; the Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights defenders; and the Special Rapporteur on
the independence of judges and lawyers urged the Philippines to stop
attacks and killings in anti-drugs campaign;
• On 31 July 2017, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or

arbitrary executions; the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human
rights defenders; and the Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual
exploitation of children called on the Government of the Philippines
to reverse spiralling rights violations, related to the growing reports of
human rights violations including murder, threats against indigenous
peoples and the summary execution of children;
• On 16 March 2017, the Special Rapporteur on summary or arbitrary

executions; and the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment urgedFilipino
legislators to reject death penalty bill;
• On 16 December 2016, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial,

summary or arbitrary executions called on the Government of the
Philippines to lift a series of preconditions imposed on her planned
visit to the country;
• On 18 August 2016, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary

or arbitrary executions; and the Special Rapporteur on the right of
everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical
and mental health urged the Philippines to stop unlawful killings of
people suspected of drug-related offences;
• On 6 June 2016, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or

arbitrary executions; and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and
protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression urged
Philippines president-elect to stop instigating deadly violence.
*The experts: Ms Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary

or arbitrary executions; Ms Meskerem Geset Techane, Chair of the Working Group
on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice; Ms Hilal Elver,
Special Rapporteur on the right to food; Mr. Michel Forst, Special Rapporteur on
the situation of human rights defenders; Mr. David Kaye, Special Rapporteur on
the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Mr.
Annexes 97
Clément Nyaletsossi Voulé, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful

assembly and of association;; Mr. José Antonio Guevara Bermúdez, Chair-
Rapporteur, Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; Mr. Dainius Pūras, Special
Rapporteur on the right to health; Ms Victoria Lucia Tauli-Corpuz, Special
Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous people; Ms Dubravka Šimonović, Special
Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences; Mr. Diego
García-Sayán, Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers.
The Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups are part of what is known as the
Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest
body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general
name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that
address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world.
Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and
do not receive a salary for their work.They are independent from any government or
organization and serve in their individual capacity.
98 Annexes
INTRODUCTION OF DRAFT RESOLUTION

L.20 BY ICELAND:
PROMOTION AND PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
IN THE PHILIPPINES
Geneva 11 July 2019
Thank you, Mr. President.
I have the honor to introduce draft resolution L.20 entitled “Promotion

and protection of human rights in the Philippines”.
Both the former and current High Commissioners for Human Rights have
repeatedly raised concerns about the increase in violence and impunity in
the Philippines. This Council session, High Commissioner Bachelet noted
the extraordinarily high number of reported deaths and persistent reports
of extrajudicial killings in the context of campaigns against drug use.
In the past three years, Special Procedure mandate holders have issued
thirty-three statements on the Philippines. Thirty-three.
Most recently, eleven special rapporteurs jointly called for an independent

investigation into human rights violations in the Philippines, citing a sharp
deterioration in the situation across the country, including sustained attacks
on people and institutions defending human rights.
UN treaty bodies and the Philippines’s own National Human Rights

Institution have expressed similar concerns.
Indeed, concerns have been so serious that both the Executive Director of
the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the UN Secretary-General have
condemned the apparent endorsement of extrajudicial killings of suspected
drug dealers in the Philippines.
Annexes 99
Mr. President,
We bring this resolution not because we seek confrontation. That is never

Iceland’s preferred approach. We have tried to engage constructively on
this issue for more than two years. Since 2017, Iceland has led three joint
statements on the Philippines in the Council, expressing our serious concern
while maintaining dialogue with the Philippines delegation.
We have engaged with the Philippines bilaterally over the past two years at
Ministerial, Ambassadorial, Deputy and Expert level on this issue and we
have remained open to constructive engagement and dialogue throughout.
Mr. President,
As a new member of the Council last year, Iceland pledged to address human
rights concerns on their merits, applying objective criteria in determining
if a situation warrants Council action in a non-politicized, non-selective
and objective manner. We have put forward a balanced text with a very
modest ask – simply requesting the High Commissioner to prepare a report
for discussion by June next year.
We discuss the need to prevent and respond to violations on a regular basis

in this Council. But all too often our words are not borne out by our acts.
If we cannot respond in a serious way to the repeated calls for action by the
mechanisms of this Council, by the High Commissioner for Human Rights
and even the UN Secretary General, then when can we respond?
We thank all delegations for their constructive engagement during the

informal consultations and I hope that this draft can be adopted with the
support of all members of this Council.
I thank you, Mr. President.

100 Annexes
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
FORTY-FIRST SESSION
24 JUNE–12 JULY 2019
AGENDA ITEM 2
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH

COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND REPORTS OF
THE OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER AND THE
SECRETARY-GENERAL
Austria, Belgium,* Canada,* Czechia, Denmark, Estonia,*

Finland,* France,* Germany,* Greece,* Iceland, Ireland,* Latvia,*
Liechtenstein,*Lithuania,* Luxembourg,* Malta,* Monaco,*
Montenegro,* Netherlands,* New Zealand,* Poland,* Portugal,*
Romania,* San Marino,* Slovenia,* Sweden,* United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland: draft resolution1
41/... PROMOTION AND PROTECTION OF

HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE PHILIPPINES
The Human Rights Council,
Guided by the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights, the International Covenants on Human Rights and other
relevant international human rights instruments,
Reaffirming the primary responsibility of States to respect, protect and fulfil

all human rights and fundamental freedoms and to fulfil their obligations
under human rights treaties and agreements to which they are parties,
* State not a member of the Human Rights Council.

1 Búlgaría, Kosta Ríka, Króatía, Kýpur og Slóvakía bættust áþennan lista e ftir að skjalið var útbúiðafSÞ.
[Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus and Slovakia were added to this list after the document was
prepared by the UN.]
Annexes 101
Recalling repeated expressions of concern about the situation of human rights

in the Philippines by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights and special procedure mandate holders,
Expressing concern at the allegations of human rights violations in the

Philippines, particularly those involving killings, enforced disappearances,
arbitrary arrest and detention, the intimidation and persecution of or
violence against members of civil society, human rights defenders, indigenous
peoples, journalists, lawyers and members of the political opposition, and
restrictions on the freedoms of opinion and expression, peaceful assembly
and association,
Bearing in mind that, since the campaign against illegal drugs was announced
in the Philippines in mid-2016, there have been allegations of the killing
of thousands of people allegedly involved in the drug trade and drug use,
Reaffirming the determination of Member States to tackle the world drug

problem and to actively promote a society free of drug abuse in order to
help to ensure that all people can live in health, dignity and peace, with
security and prosperity, and reaffirming also the determination of Member
States to address public health, safety and social problems resulting from
drug abuse,
Emphasizing that the right to life must be respected and protected by all
law enforcement agencies in their efforts to address drug-related crimes,
and that allegations of drug-trafficking offences should be judged in a court
of law that adheres to internationally recognized fair trial and due process
norms and standards,
Deeply concerned about allegations of threats, intimidation and personal

attacks directed against special procedure mandate holders, including the
Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples and the Special
Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions,
Welcoming the statements made by the Government of the Philippines

expressing its willingness to welcome independents experts from the United
Nations to conduct an objective assessment of the situation of human rights
in the country,
102 Annexes
Noting with appreciation the adoption in June 2019 by the House of

Representatives of the Philippines of the Human Rights Defenders
Protection Act,
1. Urges the Government of the Philippines to take all necessary measures

to prevent extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, to carry
out impartial investigations and to hold perpetrators accountable, in
accordance with international norms and standards, including on due
process and the rule of law;
2. Calls upon the Government of the Philippines to cooperate with the

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
and the mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, including by
facilitating country visits and preventing and refraining from all acts of
intimidation or retaliation;
3. Requests the High Commissioner to prepare a comprehensive written

report on the situation of human rights in the Philippines, and to
present it to the Human Rights Council at its forty-fourth session, to
be followed by an enhanced interactive dialogue.
Annexes 103
PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT SHOULD ABIDE BY

THE UNHRC RESOLUTION
Statement of International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines
12 July 2019
The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, a

global coalition of organizations campaigning for human rights and
Filipino people’s rights, lauds the United Nations Human Rights Council
(UNHRC) resolution seeking investigation into the human rights situation
in the Philippines. We thank all governments who voted in favour of the
Iceland-sponsored resolution. We warmly commend all rights advocates
who have lobbied with governments to support this resolution.
At the same time, we strongly criticise the Philippine government for

"rejecting" the said resolution claiming that "it was not universally adopted".
The Government of the Republic of the Philippines cannot simply reject
the UNHRC resolution. The Philippines is a founding member of the
Council and signatory to all the relevant United Nations Conventions on
which the UNHRC bases its work.
That is why President Rodrigo Duterte should abide by the resolution

and welcome the visit of UN Special Rapporteurs which will inform the
subsequent reform of the High Commissioner Ms. Michelle Bachelet. The
government should respect and abide by internationally recognized bodies
and mechanisms.
The resolution filed by Iceland was adopted at the UNHRC 41st regular
session in Geneva, Switzerland on July 11, 2019.
The resolution "urges the government of the Philippines to take all necessary
measures to prevent extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, to
carry out impartial investigations and to hold perpetrators accountable in
accordance with international norms and standards including those on due
process and the rule of law."
104 Annexes
It also urges the Philippine government to cooperate with the Office of the
High Commissioner and the mechanisms of the Human Rights Council,
including by facilitating country visits and preventing and refraining from
all acts of intimidation or retaliation.
In 2018, UN Secretary-General António Guterres' annual report to the

UNHRC placed the Philippines on the list of states that intimidate and
retaliate against human rights defenders.
We call on all member organizations and supporters of ICHRP to condemn

the Philippine government’s rejection of the UNHRC resolution and to
intensify pressure on it to cooperate fully with the resolution. ICHRP
will re-double its calls to end human rights violations and impunity in the
Philippines. We vow to initiate any and all actions and venues, including
diplomatic initiatives, to see that the Philippine government abides by the
UNHRC resolution.
Annexes 105
ON THE APPROVAL OF THE UNHRC

RESOLUTION ON THE PHILIPPINE RIGHTS
SITUATION
IBON International Statement
12 July 2019
A resolution for increased scrutiny of the deteriorating rights situation in

the Philippines was approved, after reaching a simple majority of 18 votes of
member-states at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
This decision has been reached after years of crucial work by rights
defenders and people’s organisations in documenting cases of blatant rights
violations, and in clamouring for accountability and justice in national and
international platforms. We therefore welcome the decision as an initial
step toward internal accountability of state actors to the people, from the
top decision-makers of the country’s “anti-drug” campaigns and of the
militarist “internal security” policy against rights defenders and activists.
The Philippine government, as an actor bound by international law and

rights treaties, must now cooperate on the stipulations of the resolution.
The currently dismissive position of the Foreign Affairs Secretary is counter
to this responsibility, as he reserved “contempt” amid supposed “misuse”
of rights principles, and echoed right-wing, exclusionary rhetoric of
“protect[ing] the law abiding against the lawless.”
People’s organisations, civil society and victims’ kin must nevertheless remain
vigilant, amid possible virulent rhetoric by certain vested interests to nullify
or discredit efforts to obtain accountability. Steady and adamant pressure on
state actors must remain to finally halt, and render justice for, persisting state
violence and impunity in the so-called “war on drugs” and various attacks
against the poor and civilian organisations of land, indigenous and other
rights defenders.
106 Annexes
LETTER TO UNITED NATIONS HIGH

COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (OHCHR)
ON ESCALATED POLITICAL KILLINGS IN
NEGROS ORIENTAL
August 9, 2019
Hon Michelle Bachelet

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
E-mail: registry@ohchr.org
Strongest protest at escalated political killings in Negros Oriental,

the Philippines
Dear Excellency,
We write to protest in the strongest terms the recent horrific political killings
in the Philippines province of Negros Oriental, in which 15 community
leaders and a lawyer were assassinated. These killings followed closely the
July 11 vote by the UN Human Rights Council to require you to report
on the human rights situation in the Philippines.
This list is compiled from multiple reliable media sources in the Philippines.
On July 23, 2019, 53-year-old lawyer Anthony Trinidad, and his wife Novie
Marie were inside their vehicle when two motorcycle-riding assailants shot
them in Guihulngan City in Negros Oriental. They were travelling from
a court hearing in La Libertad town and going home to San Carlos City.
Trinidad was killed, and his wife was seriously wounded. His name was on
a hit list publicly displayed by the Kawsa Guihulnganon Batok Komunista
(KAGUBAK) militia.
On July 24, rebel returnee Weny Alegre, and Felimino Janayan, president
of United Calango Farmer Association (UCFA) were gunned down in
Zamboanguita town, Negros Oriental, on July 24 by four unidentified men
on two motorcycles.
Annexes 107
On July 25 alone, seven were killed:
• At around 12.55am, Arthur Bayawa, 55, school principal, and his sister
Ardale, a 49-year-old employee of the Department of Education,
were shot dead while asleep inside their home in Barangay Hibaiyo,
Guihulngan City.
• At about 1.40am, armed men forced their way inside the house of
Barangay Captain Romeo Alipan Arbole at Larena, Poblacion Guihulngan
and shot him multiple times.
• Resident Raklin Astorias was shot dead in Guihulngan City.
• In Ayungon town, resident Reden Eleuterio was attacked and killed by

armed men.
• In Santa Catalina town, Marlon Ocampo and his 1-year-old son were
shot dead inside their home. His wife and another child were wounded
but survived.
On the night of July 26, motorcycle-riding assailants gunned down Fedirico

Sabejon, a resident of Barangay 3 in Siaton town, Negros Oriental.
After midnight on July 27, in neighbouring Negros Occidental, Canlaon

City Councillor Bobby C Jalandoni (71) and village chief Ernesto Posadas
were assassinated in their homes.
Also on July 27, former Ayungon Mayor Edcel Enardecido and a relative, Leo
Enardecido, were shot dead by armed men at 2.30am.
On July 28, Canlaon city resident, Ananciancino Rosalita, was gunned down
in the public market.
The immediate trigger for this slaughter of civilians was the death of
four police officers in a New People’s Army ambush on July 18, 2019,
at Brgy. Mabato, Ayungon, Negros Oriental. The police officers were
Corporal Relebert Beronio, and Patrolmen Raffy Callao, Roel Cabellon,
and Marquino de Leon. Whatever the merits of this military encounter,
international law insists that civilians cannot be targets of deadly force in
military conflicts.
108 Annexes
This July wave of killings follows a pattern already set. A combined police-
army operation, called Oplan Sauron, first struck on December 27 last year,
when six peasants were killed and fifty arrested at Guihulngan City and two
nearby towns in northern Negros.
Then on March 31 this year, 14 peasant leaders in Canlaon City, Manjuyod,

and Sta. Catalina, Negros Oriental, were shot dead by the Philippine
National Police Special Action Forces and Regional Mobile Force, along
with elements of the 94th Infantry Brigade Philippine Army. Almost all
were shot in their beds or outside their homes in the early hours of the
morning, as happened on July 27, 2019.
These campaigns are instigated under President Duterte’s Memorandum

Order No. 32 issued on November 22, 2018, which ordered more soldiers
and police to the Bicol region and the provinces of Samar, Negros Oriental,
and Negros Occidental to "suppress lawless violence and acts of terror."
The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines therefore

urges you and the United Nations Security Council to:
• condemn the escalating waves of murder of civilian political figures in

the Philippines, in particular the political murder in July this year of at
least 16 people in Negros by suspected state security forces
• urge the Philippine government to facilitate the July 11 2019 decision

of the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the human rights
situation in the Philippines
• urge the Philippine government to facilitate the High Level Mission

decided by the International Labour Organisation in June 2019
• urge the Philippine government to stop the vilification and smear

campaigns, through red-tagging and terrorist-labelling, against human
rights defenders including lawyers
• urge the Philippine government to recall Memorandum Order No. 32

and its escalation of political violence in Negros, Samar, and Bicol, and
to cancel Oplan Sauron.
Annexes 109
• urge the Philippine government to re-start the formal peace talks with
the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, for which the Royal
Norwegian Government is the Third Party Facilitator.
The Philippines government is a party to the Universal Declaration of

Human Rights, the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights,
and all major Human Rights instruments.
Yours sincerely,
(signed)
Peter Murphy, Chairperson, Global Council,
International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines
Cc: Cc Mr Antonio Guterres, United Nations; UN Special Rapporteur

on EJK; DFAT Desk; Senator Marise Payne, Minister for Foreign Affairs;
Senator Penny Wong; Senator Richard Di Natale, Andrew Wilkie MHR;
Julia Dean; Ret Gen Carlito G Galvez Jr, Presidential Adviser on the Peace
Process; Ret Maj Gen Delfin Lorenzana, Secretary, Dept of Defence; Mr
Menardo Guevarra, Secretary, Department of Justice; Mr. Jose Luis Martin
Gascon, Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights.

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REPRESSION & IMPUNITY

Continuing Attacks on People’s Rights

© IBON International 2019

IBON International holds the rights to this

IBON International responds to international

Editor: Jennifer del Rosario-Malonzo

This document has been produced

A creeping reign of repression, impunity in the Philippines 1

From counting curses to counting corpses:

Negros 14: New wave of peasant killings 33

The Reincarnation of Marcos and

Witnessing for rights and justice amid tyranny:

Cyber-censorship: Silencing the Philippine alternative media 65

Lumad Schools: A Struggle for Land and Learning 71

Termination of Peace under Duterte’s bloody regime 81

Introduction of draft resolution L.20 by Iceland:

Tabled version of UNHRC resolution L.20 on promotion and

Philippine Government Should Abide by the UNHRC

On the approval of the UNHRC resolution on the Philippine

Letter to United Nations High Commissioner for Human

This volume consists of articles and analyses on the worsening repression,

The worsening situation is again a matter of urgent international scrutiny,

The adoption of a UNHRC resolution towards greater scrutiny into the

of the ruling elite, as well as provide insight on how Philippine organisations

While movements face a daunting challenge in the worsening rights

D ifferent domestic organisations as well as international actors continue

The so-called “biggest threat to national security”

(NDFP)—remain undefeated as the longest-running communist revolution

In its anniversary statement, the CPP called to wage all-out resistance,

The sustained revolutionary struggles have continued to exasperate the

Aggravating the tension, Duterte signed the Executive Order No. 70

-- a so-called ‘whole-of-nation’ approach towards achieving a government-

The ‘truth’ caravan

The government-led “truth caravan” attempted to claim that first, there

Box 1: CSOs, rights defenders under threat, again

Karapatan, a human rights alliance of individuals, groups, and

Shrinking spaces for civil society

But under the memorandum, such as in Section 10.2, Chapter X, the

Armchairs to armed conflict

The Duterte administration’s red-tagging have affected sectoral organizations

In a widely criticized move, the AFP alleged universities in Metro Manila

Cases of red-tagging are also experienced by members of the student

Box 2: The security apparatus and the militant youth

Two members of the youth mass organization Anakbayan were also

elements of the AFP held a discussion to red-tag mass organizations in

NPA-NDF, a terrorist group that is trying to overthrow the Philippine

“A for arms, B for bullets”

This attack is particularly explicit in Lumad schools in Mindanao: as

Cracking down on unionists

According to the International Trade Union Confederation, the Philippines

Duterte himself has earlier parroted the same “front” organization

Unionised teachers have also experienced state surveillance. A January

ACT Partylist Representative France Castro had pointed to these attacks

She added that ACT is the largest, non-traditional organization of academic

Castro herself has seen Duterte’s repressive attacks to teachers. In November

Guilty or not guilty?

In what could be interpreted as a move to evade accountability, Duterte has

A matrix received from “a high-placed source in the Office of the President”

A statement by Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo confirmed this