Press Statement
July 19, 2025

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) considers the Trump-Marcos Jr. meetings taking place from July 20 to 22 in Washington, DC as anything but a meeting of equals. The purpose of the visit as described by the Philippines is to discuss how the two countries can further deepen their security and economic engagements, including what Philippine Ambassador Romualdez has called “peace through deterrence.” In reality the meeting represents the subservience of the GRP to the US, and the development of the “peace through deterrence” strategy will only bring more war and destruction to the Filipino people.

This meeting follows the growing trend of increasing militarization in the Philippines. The US and its allies have ramped up preparations for war against China, boosting mutual defence agreements, and conducted large-scale combat exercises in the Philippines, with increasing frequency.  

These recent moves include the February 2023 agreement to place four more US military bases in the Philippines – three of them oriented towards Taiwan – under the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Arrangement (EDCA). In April 2024, the US military began deploying in Northern Luzon a new offensive intermediate-range land-based missile system known as Typhoon, which is capable of reaching large population centres in mainland China. In June 2025 the US House appropriations committee announced the intention to establish a forward-based munitions factory and storage facility at Subic Bay, Philippines, and this July the US announced plans to build two new ship repair facilities near the disputed West Philippine seas. 

“The US military build up in the Philippines is not defensive nor geared towards peace, but aggressive war preparations that put the Filipino people at risk to be collateral damage in a war with China. The Filipino people don’t want to be a battlefield for a great power war,” said ICHRP Chairperson Peter Murphy. “ICHRP urges all nations in the region to deescalate the frightening military buildup towards war,” said Murphy.

The Marcos-Trump meeting takes place following intensive attacks from Trump against poor and working Filipinos, both in the Philippines and in the US. On July 9, the White House announced a 20 per cent tariff taking effect on August 1^st of this year, which disproportionately impacts peasants and workers in the Philippines. Within the United States, the Trump administration continues an all out attack on migrants including the detention, inhumane and illegal treatment of Filipino migrants. The imposition of tariffs, the maltreatment of Filipino migrants — unchallenged by Marcos Jr — and the increasing US military presence in the Philippines will further plunge the most marginalized in Philippines society into poverty. 

Due to the major socioeconomic issues of the Philippines, the country remains embroiled in a long-standing civil war. But the US, Australia, Canada, Japan and other Western allies ignore gross violations of human rights and International Humanitarian Law occurring in the Philippines in favour of deepening military cooperation and arms sales to the Philippines as part of their broader preparation for war against China. 

Peace in the Philippines and the Asia Pacific region will not come through the US “deterrence” strategy. Genuine peace must be based on justice which necessitates the undoing of the unequal US-Philippines relationship most characterized by US economic coercion and military dominance of the country.  

No to US military expansion in the Philippines!
Stop all war preparations in Asia Pacific!
Defend human rights and International Humanitarian Law!

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Further comment: Peter Murphy, ICHRP Chairperson. WhatsApp: +61 418312301. Email: ichrp.net/contact

Urgent alert

July 18, 2025

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines vehemently condemns the permanent banning of Kapatid spokesperson Fides Lim from prison camps by the Philippine Bureau of Corrections. The ban will indefinitely prevent Lim from providing essential humanitarian aid to prisoners, in addition to interfering with the provision of other services and advocacy by Kapatid.

Kapatid is a support organization of families and friends of political prisoners in the Philippines that works for their release and the protection of their rights and welfare. Lim herself is married to political prisoner Vicente Ladlad, who is a peace consultant for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Lim and Kapatid have provided vital aid to prisoners including food, medicine, and women’s hygiene products – aid which the Bureau of Corrections itself does not have the ability to provide to meet the needs of prisoners living in extremely over-crowded and unsanitary conditions.

Lim discovered the ban on July 10 after being denied entry to the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila while delivering food to prisoner Rona Degoso. Lim called the banning “politically motivated and institutional harassment”.

ICHRP calls for the lifting of the ban on Lim and for the release of all political prisoners in the Philippines. We call on the international community to increase support for political prisoners by raising legal funds, writing letters, and campaigning for their release.

Statement
July 17, 2025

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) condemns the July 9 unilateral 20 percent tariff imposed by the United States on imports from the Philippines as an act of economic coercion which will harm the poorest Filipinos the most.

“This unilateral punitive tariff is an act of coercion and humiliation against the Filipino people,” said ICHRP Chairperson Peter Murphy. “This naked bullying is the economic mirror image of the US action in turning the Philippines into a massive military base for war with China. There is zero respect for the basic right to self-determination of the Filipino people.”

While the 20 percent tariff is part of a global Trump attack on almost all trading partners, the US military concentration on the Philippines is part of a tighter US Indo-Pacific Strategy, aimed at assembling all possible military allies alongside US forces for a major war with China in the near future.

The tariffs are bargaining chips in Trump’s punishment of any country which has a trade surplus with the US or has tariffs on imports from the US. Trump is clearly willing to bargain with his target countries to gain access to more minerals, and to remove or reduce tariffs on US products, as he has achieved with Indonesia.

All Philippine elites since 1946, including the Marcos Jr. administration, have facilitated US demands for unfair economic treatment. Trump stands out for the brutality of his approach and the crude terms he wants to impose. No more talk of “free trade” of “development” or “partnership”, just “I want a deal”.

With an August 1 deadline looming, the Marcos Jr. administration could theoretically “do a deal” to cut the tariff back to the minimum 10 per cent rate by making other concessions to Trump. But what would be the cost?

Duterte’s Rice Tariffication Act demonstrated the danger of removing protections for Philippine industries. Both Duterte and Marcos promised to reduce the price of rice to 20 pesos (US$0.35) per kilogram, but even with massive rice imports the price ranges from 33 to 60 pesos per kilo, depending on quality. The daily minimum wage in Metro Manila is now just 695 pesos (US$12.14), having increased by a paltry 50 pesos on July 1. Rice farmers have been hit hard, and the situation for the people buying rice has become far worse. Masses of Filipinos are hungry.

In 2024, the US trade deficit with the Philippines was just $5.29 billion. This is a tiny blip for the US, whose Gross Domestic Product in 2024 was just over $29,000 billion. And since US corporations dominate the export processing zones from which much of the product is exported to the US, the US profits from either a trade deficit or a trade surplus.

Trump’s trade policy is driven by anti-democratic 18^th century theories of empire trade, which are really obsolete because in today’s empires investment and finance are supreme. The US already massively dominates in global investment and finance. Trump’s policies hurt poor and working class people everywhere, smashing corporate supply chains and sharply increasing the cost of all goods imported into the US. His policies can be defeated.

ICHRP stands with Filipino peasants and farmers, and the Filipino people at large whose already poor standard of living is under real threat, and whose long-disregarded political and economic autonomy are being openly derided by Trump.

The answer is not more traditional “free trade” deals with other Global North countries – which have already damaged the livelihoods of Filipino farmers and workers.

The answer is international solidarity with farmers and workers everywhere, including in the US, in common struggles to elevate wages for workers and livelihoods for farmers, to stop the attacks on migrant workers in the US and Europe, to stop the attacks on Filipinos across the world, to enable balanced industrialization in all countries, and to shut down the Indo-Pacific military build-up to war with China.

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Statement
July 12, 2025

In a report dated June 16, 2025, the US House Committee on Appropriations ordered the US Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of State and the International Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) to assess the feasibility of establishing a joint ammunition production and storage facility in Subic Bay. ICHRP strongly opposes this clear and alarming escalation of US military presence and control. The basing of factories for weapons of mass killing in the Philippines is an affront to the Filipino people’s right to national sovereignty and self-determination. 

The move to produce and store weapons in the Philippines places the Filipino people in further danger of being at the crossfire of US-led war in the region, and as the colonizer, the US continues to treat Filipinos as collateral damage. 

The creation of a new production and storage facility in the Philippines paves the way for the further escalation of the US war against China and the US-backed counterinsurgency which targets Filipinos struggling for democratic rights and liberation. The location of the proposed facility, 1,000 kms from China, is purely an offensive capability, endangering the lives of millions of Filipinos and subverting their sovereignty. 

We lend our full support to the Filipino people who are valiantly resisting the government’s involvement in the US military-industrial complex that manufactures weapons meant to murder and inflict suffering on Filipinos and oppressed peoples across the globe. 

The Coalition also sees this as an increasingly aggressive US military push aimed at crushing the national liberation movement in the Philippines so it can put its full focus on China. Framed as part of the US Indo-Pacific Ammunition Manufacturing Strategy, this project would revive America’s forward-deployed logistics capabilities in Asia by producing and stockpiling munitions, including key explosive chemical precursors like nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose, on Philippine soil. The proposal follows after an increase of US Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites in the Philippines, as well as a growing trend of US military forces strategically leaving weapon systems in the country following the Balikatan exercises. This includes the deployment of the Typhoon missile system in 2024 and the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) in 2025.  

The setting up of a US military production facility in the Philippines at a former US military base – Subic Bay – flies in the face of the popular unrest that led to the dismantling of US military bases Subic Bay in 1991. The termination of the US Bases Agreement, which had been imposed on the Philippines by its colonial power for almost a century, was a victory for the democratic movement and was considered a break from its colonial past. 

Now 30 years later, the past is the present, with every succeeding government since 1991 caving to US interests, increasing integration with the US military, openly embracing the US containment of China strategy developed under the Obama administration’s 2011 Pivot to Asia policy, and further enhanced through military agreements and the annual multi-national Balikatan war games.

The Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. has already issued public statements welcoming and fawning over this direct assault on the sovereignty of the Philippines. Teodoro was totally onboard with the proposal of the US House Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee recommendation to establish an ammunition manufacturing facility in the Philippines. Given that the genesis of the plan is in the US Capitol, it is clear that Tedoro’s marching orders as nominal secretary of Philippine defense are coming from Washington and not Manila. 

The proliferation of US military presence in the Philippines only leads to greater destruction of the Filipino people’s rights and livelihood. US presence in the Philippines has always brought toxic waste, destruction of land, suspension of fishing, displacement, oppression of women and children, and widespread killings in so-called counterinsurgency operations. 

The presence of US and foreign military forces in the Philippines, as well as the eventual establishment of a US military weapons manufacturing hub, infringes upon the Filipino people’s right to self-determination and national sovereignty. These rights are enshrined in the United Nations Charter and recognized by the Algiers Declaration on the Rights of Peoples. We remain in solidarity with the Filipino people in their fight and aspirations for a truly independent Philippines, free from foreign intervention.  

Oppose US Munitions Factory in Subic Bay!

Oppose the ongoing expansion of bilateral military agreements that continually violate the people’s right to self-determination!

Oppose the use of the Philippines as a staging ground for US Wars in Asia!

Media release
July 2, 2025

On June 27 and 28, over 70 people of faith, members of the clergy, and human rights activists from 13 countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas gathered in Rome, Italy for Pagtatanim: Sowing Seeds of Faith Solidarity for the Filipino People’s Struggle for Peace.

Over the two days of the conference, speakers and participants emphasized the urgent need for solidarity from communities of faith during the current political moment. As participants stated in the conference declaration, “Like many, we journeyed to Rome from around the World to reflect on the essence of Leviticus 25, which speaks of the Year of the Lord, the Jubilee. We find hope and inspiration that every 50 years, God commanded the people to liberate all slaves, cancel all debts, let everyone return to their ancestral lands, and let the land be renewed.”

During the keynote panel, Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, Vice-president of Catholic organization Caritas, emphasized faith communities’ duty to “accompany those under threat, listing political prisoners, searching for the disappeared, [and] advocating for peace talks, not surrender.” Drawing on the biblical concept of Jubilee, he envisioned peace as comprehensive restoration: “return land, forgive deaths, and set captives free.” He connected this to the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year 2025, themed “Hope”, as an opportunity to “plant seeds of justice” even in hostile environments.

Throughout Pagtatanim, attendees heard from survivors and witnesses of human rights violations, war crimes, and environmental destruction in the Philippines. Whether highlighting former President Rodrigo Duterte’s legacy of thousands of extrajudicial killings under his infamous “war on drugs;” current President Marcos Jr.’s practice of selling out Philippine land, labor, and resources to the highest international bidder; or the harassment, detention, and enforced disappearance of environmental advocates and faith activists; all of them spoke of the culture of “unpeace” that flourishes in the Philippines today with the support of global powers like the US, Canada, and Australia.

Unpeace, as explained by human rights advocate and member of human rights alliance Karapatan, Charmane Maranan, is repression as law. It is the normalization of violence, the criminalization of resistance and critical thought, and the adoption of policies that obscure the soft invasion of the Philippines by the US behind a smokescreen of talk about “development” and “protection from China.” “It is the language of repression,” stated Maranan.

A just and lasting peace, the panelists and speakers explained, would not simply constitute the silencing of the guns. Instead, a just peace would resolve the longstanding socioeconomic roots of the armed conflict between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

Coni Ledesma, a member of the NDFP Negotiating Panel, outlined the framework for peace negotiations between the Philippine government and the NDFP, the systematic attacks on peace consultants, and the challenges they are facing in her speech. “The GRP has used every occasion to stop, to terminate, to suspend, to terminate anything so that the process does not move forward,” Ledesma explained.

The imperative and history of international solidarity with the Filipino people’s struggle was deepened on the second day with the testimonies of advocates from Catalonia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia, and the US. “We are also peoples of faith supporting an existing people’s movement that has continued to persist and persevere to struggle against the roadblocks to peace, and we remain committed  to supporting the Filipino people’s struggle to remove these roadblocks.”

Conference participants committed to action after two days of transformative presentations, panels, and workshops. “With renewed commitment we will help plant, nurture, and harvest justice in the Philippines by addressing the root causes of unpeace. Thus, we pledge to:

1. Organize theological reflections on JustPeace tied to real campaigns.
2. Advocate for an end to US foreign military aid used for repression.
3. Accompany vulnerable communities, human rights defenders, and church workers.
4. Push for the release of political prisoners, and support displaced peoples and the families of the disappeared.
5. Join ecumenical “Push Back” campaigns to defend the oppressed and stop red-tagging.
6. Continue to accompany the families of victims of the “drug war” and support the movement for accountability and justice.”