The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) condemns in the strongest terms the increasing foreign military presence in the Philippines via Exercise ALON and a new defense deal between Australia and the Philippines. 

Exercise ALON, a joint Australia – Philippines exercise which included US and Canadian forces, was conducted between August 15 and 29 in Palawan and Luzon. ALON is the largest overseas joint force projection activity that Australia has conducted in the region in recent history. It involved 1,600 troops from Australia, 1,525 from the Philippines, 350 from the US Marine Rotational Force – Darwin, and 180 from the Royal Canadian Navy.

Amid ALON 2025, Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles was in Manila to negotiate a higher-level Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) between the two countries, which they aim to sign in August 2026. The DCA appears to be aimed at Australia building new military facilities in the Philippines, to be used in a higher tempo of military exercises. 

While the details of the DCA have not been disclosed, Marles said Australia has eyes on “eight different infrastructure projects across five different locations” in the Philippines. For sure, the deal means greater foreign military presence in a country the US is already using as a major base for troops as it conducts preparations for war with China. 

“How can the Filipino people exercise their basic human right to self-determination when their country is the playground for ever more foreign troops with more and more sophisticated weapons?” asked ICHRP Chairperson Peter Murphy.

Australia’s intensifying military presence in the Philippines is underpinned by a 1995 Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperative Defence Activities, the Status of Visiting Forces Agreement of 2012, and the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Program (EDCP) of 2019-21.The agreement flows from a 2023 Strategic Partnership Agreement between the two countries, which commits them to an annual ministerial-level defense meeting, as well as exercises and operations between the two defense forces.

Marles told the Philippine media, “We are two countries, both of which share values, democracies, freedom of speech. We are committed to the rule of law …”

Murphy challenged Marles to explain how the rule of law works in the Philippines, given that its most recent President, Rodrigo Duterte, is under arrest at the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands, while the Armed Forces of the Philippines continues to commit violations of International Humanitarian Law at a rapid pace. “The Philippine government and justice system totally failed its people, but Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister is doing his best to whitewash the reality,” Murphy said.

More Background on Exercise ALON

Exercise Alon was first held in 2023 and aims to demonstrate the ability of Australia and the Philippines to practice high-end amphibious warfighting skills together. The Australian, Philippine and Canadian navies contributed a guided missile destroyer, two guided missile frigates and associated helicopters. Australia provided fighter, transport, air tanker and surveillance aircraft, while the Philippines contributed fighters and ground attack aircraft and helicopters. These forces conducted amphibious landing operations and maritime manoeuvres as well as live-fire exercises at military training ranges and in maritime areas.

ICHRP Statement on Anniversary of Cry of Pugad Lawin

August 27, 2025

This August 26th, one hundred and twenty-nine years after the Filipino people rose up against the Spanish following the Cry of Pugad Lawin, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) remembers and expresses our ongoing support for the Filipino people’s long struggle for genuine liberation and national sovereignty. 

In the year 1896, the Filipino people faced foreign occupation and dominance under Spanish colonialism. Spanish friars enforced a feudal land system with the cross backed by swords. That August, Filipinos tore up cedulas (community tax certificates) – a symbol of subservience to the Spanish – and revolutionaries led by Andres Bonifacio launched the Sigaw ng Pugad Lawin [“The Cry of Pugad Lawin;” a historical barrio in current day Quezon City] which started a revolution against Spanish dominance. 

To this day, the Filipino people reckon with the problems presented by a semi-feudal society under US neocolonial rule. Just this July, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), the peasant movement of the Philippines, celebrated 40 years of struggle for the rights of peasants amid semi-feudal and semi-colonial conditions. Since their founding under the Marcos dictatorship in 1985, KMP has proven that peasants are not only food creators, but pathfinders and advocates of genuine social change. Their struggle – and the struggle of the whole Filipino people – continues today under the US-backed Marcos Jr regime. 

While millions of Filipinos go hungry in the countryside, Marcos is opening up the economy and land only to benefit the Philippine elite and foreign tycoons. Land use conversion – farmland taken from peasants for commercial projects – is rampant. Under the guise of “green” development, Marcos Jr has welcomed foreign investment programs including renewable energy projects, but without the free prior and informed consent of communities, and without proof of how these energy projects will result in the equitable distribution of energy in the country. The New Clark City and Bulacan Airport projects present themselves as shiny tourist destinations after displacing poor communities, and peasants continue to decry Marcos’s land reform programs and the World Bank SPLIT program as fake land reform. 

“When the Filipino people are suffering from the soaring cost of food and low wages, the government should prioritize genuine land reform and agricultural projects that feed Filipinos,” said Peter Murphy, ICHRP Chairperson. “Instead, the Marcos regime is selling out Philippine lands to foreign interests and bombing the very communities who cultivate the food the people need.” 

While Filipino peasant farmers resist the seizure of their lands, they also face the worst of militarization and violations of international humanitarian law. This month, in the midst of an Asia-Pacific Conference on “International Humanitarian Law” hosted by the Philippines, the Armed Forces of the Philippines conducted a campaign of terror against civilians backed with US support. In the last few months state forces have conducted numerous indiscriminate bombings across Mindoro and Central Luzon, killed a farmer Juan Sumilhig in Mindoro, and most recently pounded villages in Laguna with gunfire, artillery, and air support.

In the spirit of the Sigaw ng Pugad Lawin, and 40 years after the founding of KMP, ICHRP renews our call for increased solidarity support for Filipino peasants and those in rural areas facing the worst of development aggression and fascist attacks of the Marcos regime. We uplift the call of the peasant movement and the whole Filipino people for genuine land reform, and call upon peace loving people around the world to support the Filipino people’s ongoing cry of genuine national sovereignty. As ICHRP, we say “Land Not Bombs! Support the Filipino Peasant Struggle Against Plunder and Militarization.”

News Release
August 19, 2025

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) firmly supports the Filipino people’s call for Marcos Jr.’s government to end international humanitarian law (IHL) violations. This amid its failure to uphold the laws of war, the worsening human rights crisis in the country, and the backdrop of de facto military rule in rural areas of the Philippines.

“We remind President Marcos Jr. that the Philippines is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, its Additional Protocols of 1977, and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). His government and the Armed Forces of the Philippines in particular, are obligated to abide by the rules of war,” said secretary-general Drew Miller, ICHRP Global Council Chairperson.

The month of August is commemorated as International Humanitarian Law Month in the Philippines. Last August 11-14, the Philippine government also recently hosted a regional conference on IHL with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). And yet, Marcos Jr. continues to routinely violate IHL and spread terror in peasant communities. Recently, in provinces of the Southern Tagalog region, civilians suffer from widespread militarization, strafings, bombings, and hamletting. This disrupts their livelihood and inflicts fear in the communities.

“In a span of two weeks, AFP soldiers killed farmer Juan Sumilhig in Mindoro, conducted aerial bombardment in Quezon, and harassed the Dumagat indigenous peoples in Rizal. These are not actions of a government that claims to be a champion of IHL. These are clear war crimes perpetrated by the Philippine state,” added Miller.

Independent humanitarian mission and fact-finding teams deployed by local human rights organizations in Mindoro and Quezon were met with intense and repeated harassment and intimidation by state forces. They aimed to look into the situation of civilians in affected communities and investigate possible violations of IHL.

“We commend the Filipino people on their vigilance and their pursuit to hold Marcos Jr. accountable for his brazen human rights and IHL violations. We call on the Philippine government to follow the rules of engagement and stop militarizing communities of peasants and indigenous peoples. We call on the ICRC and the international community to never look away–monitor, visit, and conduct investigations in the areas with reported IHL violations,” ended Miller.

Further comment: Drew Miller, ICHRP Secretary General. WhatsApp: ‪+1 (971) 235‑2150‬. Email: ichrp.net/contact

Statement
August 13, 2025

The Philippine government is once again attempting to whitewash its rotten record of violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) by hosting an Asia Pacific regional conference on the topic from 11 to 14 August 2025 in Makati City. The Marcos Jr government is currently hosting the conference in an attempt to clean up its international image – seeking the prize of a UN Security Council seat.

The conference is convened by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) with the support of the odious Inter-Agency Committee on International Humanitarian Law (IAC-IHL). The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is co-convening the conference, in spite of the internationally recognized IHL violations of the Marcos Jr government.

According to the Philippine government’s press release for the event, the Philippines has “consistently been a champion of IHL, especially in respecting its principles and ensuring its application throughout the world.” Nothing could be further from the truth. 

The US and Marcos Jr governments continue to strategically whitewash the Philippines’ IHL crimes, all while civil war and US-led counter-insurgency policy continue and intensify in many areas of the country. The Filipino people and the international community have repeatedly exposed these crimes, especially in 2024 when victims of war crimes under Duterte and Marcos Jr testified at an International People’s Tribunal in Brussels which found both regimes guilty of war crimes. 

The Marcos Jr government created the Inter-Agency Committee on International Humanitarian Law (IAC-IHL) in February 2025. The committee was charged as the national body for IHL promotion. According to ICHRP Chairperson Peter Murphy, “the IAC-IHL is window dressing and an attempt to put a cloak of legitimacy over the war crimes of the Marcos government.”

It is despicable that the Philippine government calls itself “a champion of IHL” when it is actively bombing civilian communities in Mindoro and Luzon and preventing the proper burial of a farmer, Juan Sumilhig, extrajudicially killed under the guise of “counter-insurgency.” 

Just this week, farmer organizations in the Philippines, including the Philippine Peasant Movement (KMP) and Tanggol Magsasaka (Defend Peasants), supported the filing of four resolutions from the Makabayan Bloc directing the House Committee on Human Rights to investigate alleged grave human rights violations and breaches of IHL in Southern Tagalog, the Cordillera and Ilocos regions, and Negros provinces.

ICHRP notes that the Philippines withdrew from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2018, and since then President Marcos Jr has kept the country from being part of the global court. Duterte withdrew to evade responsibility for IHL violations taking place as a result of his murderous drug war, ethnic cleansing in Marawi, and war on dissent. If the Philippines were serious about IHL, they would belong to the ICC – the world’s only permanent institution for investigating and prosecuting genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.

The true champions of IHL in the Philippines are the people. Peasants, indigenous people, workers, women, human rights advocates, and lawyers in the Philippines have relentlessly campaigned, in the face of state violence, for justice for the victims of IHL violations. Despite the lack of response from Philippine courts and the ongoing attempts to intimidate activists, Filipino human rights groups continue to seek justice for Randy Echanis, Jude Fernandez, Juan Sumilhig, and many other civilians who have been killed at the hands of state forces. 

ICHRP stands with the true champions of IHL in the Philippines, and those who advocate for real solutions to the armed conflict that will put an end to IHL violations – not those who seek favor with the international community with blatant lies about their record on IHL. #

URGENT ALERT
August 7, 2025

Donate to help the humanitarian team reach communities affected by militarization and IHL violations: ichrp.net/SupportMindoro

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) strongly condemns the killing of Juan Sumilhig, a Maranao farmer and former political prisoner, by elements of the 4th Infantry Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on August 1 in Sitio Salidang, Brgy. Naibuan, San Jose, Occidental Mindoro.

According to ICHRP local partner, Karapatan Southern Tagalog, Sumilhig was murdered in what is being claimed as a “fake encounter,” part of a disturbing pattern of extrajudicial killings of unarmed civilians, particularly from indigenous and farming communities. His body remains in military custody, denying him and his family the dignity of a proper burial. This is an outright violation of international humanitarian law (IHL) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).

After more than a week of facing red-tagging, surveillance, and military checkpoints, members of the Mindoro Humanitarian and Fact-Finding Mission (HFFM) have ensured the burial of Sumihig’s remains.

As of writing, the humanitarian teams are still on the ground and investigating recent violations. They need financial support for their transport and logistics. These teams are accomplishing their objectives, but are now facing limitations because of the prolonged military harassment that disrupted the mission.

Local communities are reporting a significant military presence, aerial combat operations, and surveillance in Naibuan and nearby areas, forcing farmers to flee their lands and abandon their livelihoods. As a result, widespread hunger, fear, and trauma have gripped the indigenous and peasant populations of Mindoro. Residents and officials confirm that military forces are taking control of civil governance, reflecting de facto martial law in rural areas of the country.

Ironically, the Philippine government’s ongoing IHL violations have established a state of martial rule in rural areas. These violations occur just days before the anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, which will be commemorated on August 12. These conventions are fundamental to International Humanitarian Law and are designed to protect individuals during armed conflicts. 

Filipino farming communities under attack need your help

ICHRP urgently calls on international partners to support the ongoing Humanitarian Mission in Naibuan. This independent mission is under threat from military obstruction and surveillance, and requires urgent financial and solidarity support to carry out its life-saving work.

Donate to help the humanitarian team reach communities affected by militarization and IHL violations: ichrp.net/SupportMindoro

OUR CALLS

• Independent investigation into the killing of Juan Sumilhig; Stop the killings
• End militarization of Mindoro and all rural areas
• Allow unrestricted access for all humanitarian and relief efforts to Mindoro and affected communities
• Full respect for IHL and human rights in Mindoro and across the Philippines