Press Release
July 23, 2022

“The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) salutes the mass protests to take place in Manila and across the Philippines on July 24 as President Marcos Jr gives his second State of the Nation Address,” said Peter Murphy, ICHRP Chairperson. “Marcos Jr’s first year not only continued the bloody repression of Duterte, but excelled it.

“ICHRP calls on the international community to roundly condemn the Marcos Jr government for its violations of human rights in its first nine months: 27 extrajudicial killings, 22 attempted extrajudicial killings, 4 cases of enforced disappearance, 11 cases of torture, 56 cases of illegal arrest and detention, 10,589 people forced to evacuate, 1,900 victims of aerial bombardment, and 747,345 cases of harassment and intimidation,” said Murphy.

“The war on the poor launched by Duterte through alleged police anti-drug operations continues under Marcos Jr despite the decision of the International Criminal Court to investigate the officials who did this as mass murderers,” said Murphy. “The international community cannot allow this brazen impunity to continue,” he said.

ICHRP is committed to keeping the Marcos Jr regime under our own human rights surveillance, and to alerting the international community to the dire situation of the Filipino people. The signing into law a few days ago of the so-called sovereign wealth fund, the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), is also feared to worsen the minimal basic social services such as education, health care and housing. “The MIF will bludgeon to death the people who are already suffering in a quagmire of poverty,” added Murphy. 

“ICHRP strongly supports the workers’ call for a national minimum wage of P1,100 (US$20.15) per day in the private sector and P21,000 (US$385) per month in the public sector, for an end to contractualization and for respect for trade union rights. We support the farmers’ call for genuine agrarian reform. We vigorously support the Indigenous Peoples in their battle to defend their ancestral domain. We support the broad people’s demands for genuine local development, human rights protection, good governance, and assertion of national sovereignty. We support the people’s constitutionally-guaranteed right to freedom of expression and oppose all censorship and attacks on media workers,” said Murphy.

ICHRP supports the calls from the Filipino people for the abolition of the National Task Force to End local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and the repeal of the Anti-Terrorism Act and abolition of the Anti-Terrorism Council it created. “These are rampant red-tagging machines, and in the end lead to extrajudicial killing,” said Murphy.

“All peoples, including the Filipino people, have the right to self-determination, genuine development and peace, but the Filipino people have been denied this right for too long,” said Murphy. “The powerful nations who underwrite the inhuman and anti-democratic policies of the Marcos Jr administration must cease their police and military aid until human rights are genuinely enjoyed by the Filipino people, and these countries are the USA, Canada, Japan, Australia and South Korea,” Murphy said.

“Now the Philippines is being turned into a battlefield between China and the USA in total disrespect for the Filipino people’s rights,” Murphy said.

“Marcos Jr has displayed extraordinary contempt for the terrible economic hardships of the people post-pandemic, while he indulged in lavish parties and frequent foreign trips. ICHRP supports the people’s calls for a radical reversal of these repressive policies, for respect of the comprehensive rights of the people to achieve a just, peaceful and democratic rebuilding of the Philippine economy and society,” Murphy concluded.

For further comment: Peter Murphy +61 418 312 301 [email protected]