Press Release

September 6, 2023

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) calls for the withdrawal of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ (CBCP) engagement as private sector representative to the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

“While the CBCP has clarified that only its Episcopal Commission on Public Affairs is engaging with the NTF-ELCAC to ‘address some Church issues vis-a-vis government’, the NTF-ELCAC’s gross record of human rights violations should be enough reason for the CBCP to cease any form of involvement with them,” said ICHRP Global Council Chairperson Peter Murphy.

“Instead of joining and allowing itself to be used to legitimize NTF-ELCAC, the CBCP should be calling for its abolition for it has been a tool used to demonize church people and freedom loving Filipino people who are exemplifying genuine services to their members and to their country,” added Murphy.

Church people have been victims to NTF-ELCAC’s red-tagging rampage. Last February 22, Negros Catholic Bishop Gerardo Alminaza was red-tagged during a segment of Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI)’s television program “Laban Kasama ng Bayan”. SMNI serves as the NTF-ELCAC’s propaganda machine.

“By involving the church, the NTF-ELCAC is blatantly abusing its so-called ‘whole-of-nation approach’ and it seems to have forgotten the separation of church and state,” continued Murphy.

The NTF-ELCAC was established on December 4, 2018, through then President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order (EO) 70. Its stated goal is to end the communist armed rebellion in the country, which is one of the longest running insurgencies in the world. But instead of addressing the root causes of the armed conflict, the NTF-ELCAC has resorted to baseless red-tagging, harassing, vilifying, and surveilling activists, human rights defenders, church workers, peasants, and workers. Many of those previously red-tagged end up dead or in jail with trumped-up charges.

“Joining the NTF-ELCAC is not the best way to address church issues with the government. We urge the CBCP to demand that the government respect the Filipino people’s fundamental rights and support their desire for a just peace and genuine development. ICHRP remains vigilant in exposing the Philippine government’s attempts to further its spate of human rights and international humanitarian law violations,” concluded Murphy. ###

For comment: Peter Murphy, Chairperson, ICHRP Global Council +61 418 312 301

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 chairperson@ichrp.net 

Press Release
July 19, 2023

On 18 July 2023, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”), confirmed the authorization for the ICC Prosecutor to resume its investigations of the crime against humanity of murder in the Republic of the Philippines.  The Court dismissed the Philippines ground of appeal that the Court cannot exercise its jurisdiction over the Philippines situation because the Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute.  This was the final avenue of appeal for the Marcos-Duterte government in their attempt to evade prosecution for crimes against humanity. 

The Court had previously determined that the Philippine government had neither the capacity nor the willingness to investigate the crimes of murder committed during the “War on Drugs”, which constitute potential crimes against humanity.  The Chamber had previously concluded, in the face of the Philippines earlier attempts to evade culpability, that the various domestic initiatives and proceedings, assessed collectively, do not amount to tangible, concrete and progressive investigative steps in a way that would sufficiently mirror the Court’s investigation.

The decision to proceed with the investigation aligns with the work of other bodies such as the 2021 Investigate PH Commission of Investigation which concluded that domestic measures were effectively not functioning, and there was no evidence to support the Philippine government’s contention that victims could find justice in the Philippine courts. The judicial system itself was in fact being wielded as an instrument in the Philippine government’s campaign of state terror.The three-part reports of Investigate PH were submitted to international bodies including the ICC.

The ICC decision to continue the pursuit of justice lays bare the Marcos Administration’s culpability in shielding the Duterte regime’s policies of impunity and state terror that killed up to 30,000 or more, and victimized Filipinos for six long years. “We are once again extremely appreciative of the decision of the ICC to continue the pursuit of justice against the perpetrators of these crimes,” said Peter Murphy, Chairperson of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP). 

“The court continues to offer hope to victims and victims’ families in their pursuit of justice against the Duterte regime’s brutal war on drugs, on dissent and on the Moro and all Indigenous Peoples. We continue to believe that Justice will be served despite the Marcos-Duterte administration’s decision to keep the Philippines outside the jurisdiction of the ICC and their on-going attempts to cover-up the crimes against humanity committed by the police and the military under Duterte,: said Murphy

The Marcos-Duterte administration is simply continuing its brutal predecessor’s “war on drugs” and war on dissent. ICHRP believes the investigation by the ICC may not stop the Marcos-Duterte government from sheltering the perpetrators from prosecution or prevent such crimes from continuing to occur, but it can provide some constraint and a measure of justice to the victims.

ICHRP congratulates the ICC for cutting through the fog of lies and false claims laid out by the Marcos-Duterte government that the Philippines is exempt from prosecution because it no longer recognizes the jurisdiction of the court.  In the context of a dysfunctional judicial system the ICC plays an essential role in holding to account the actions of the former President, his officials and the military’s roles in these gross violations of human rights and crimes against humanity.

“ICHRP has full confidence in the impartiality of the ICC. We urge the ICC to vigorously pursue the full investigation of the previous Duterte administration for these crimes against humanity so that, finally, justice may be served and impunity ended,” Murphy said.

Murphy, an Australian-based human rights advocate, led Investigate PH, a 2021 three-part investigation by an independent international commission on the extrajudicial killings, illegal arrests, abductions and disappearances in the Philippines since July 1, 2016, when President Duterte came into power. ###

For comment: Peter Murphy, Chairperson, ICHRP Global Council +61 418 312 301  

Press Release
July 13, 2023

“The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) condemns the July 10, 2023, designation of four Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA) leaders, Windel Bolinget, Jennifer Awingan, Sarah Abellon-Alikes, and Steve Tauli as terrorists by the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC),” said Peter Murphy, ICHRP Chairperson, today.

In its press statement, the ATC spelt out the practical legal effect of this designation – it enables the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to perform its mandate based on the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 to investigate and freeze the financial assets and properties of designated individuals, group of persons, organization or association. “We now have reports that the CPA bank accounts are frozen, a malicious attack on a legal organization,” said Murphy.

The ATC is composed of senior military and police officers.

“As well, the designation is also a high profile red-tagging of these four individuals, greatly increasing the threats to them and their families and the possibility of their extrajudicial killing,” he said.

“We vehemently condemn the relentless attacks against these four, the CPA and many other indigenous peoples’ organizations. Clearly, the Anti-Terrorism Act is being used as an instrument to stifle dissent and target civilian political activists, a breach of the basic human rights of these people as set out in the Philippine Constitution, the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, and the International Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” said Murphy.

Earlier this year, these four CPA leaders were part of the Northern Luzon 7 who were charged with a trumped-up case of rebellion, which was subsequently dismissed. Because of sustained state harassment, the CPA had appealed to the Supreme Court for the Writ of Amparo last year. CPA Chair Windel Bolinget also filed a counter charge against those who were behind another failed trumped-up charge of murder filed against him in far-off Tagum City in Mindanao, for which he had been subjected to a “shoot-ot-kill” order by the Cordillera Police Chief, and detained, before finally being vindicated.

Jennifer Awingan is a CPA staff worker. Steve Tauli is a CPA Regional Council member and torture survivor. Windel Bolinget is the CPA Chairperson, Sarah Abellon-Alikes is a development worker.

The CPA has long been an effective community-based organisation for indigenous communities to resist massive development aggression projects on their ancestral lands. This is the underlying reason for the killings, persecution and harassment of their leaders over many years.

At the United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Philippines on November 14, 2022, Justice Secretary Jesus Remulla claimed that human rights in the Philippines were fully protected by an independent judiciary and well-trained police. The true picture is exposed in this latest non-judicial assault by the ATC on the CPA leaders, with reckless charges that these unarmed civilian activists – who use all available democratic processes to assert the rights of their communities – are terrorists. Windel Bolinget actively participated in the UPR representing the Indigenous Peoples. 

ICHRP urges the international community to join our call for the immediate cancellation of the terrorist designation by a government executive body of these four Indigenous Peoples’ community leaders, and for the unfreezing of the CPA bank accounts. We also call for the abolition of the ATC and the repeal of the repressive Anti-Terrorism Act.

ICHRP urges the international community to support the current investigation of the Duterte administration by the International Criminal Court, and to take more action to politically, militarily and economically isolate the Marcos Jr administration until basic human rights are genuinely upheld in the country.

For further comment: Peter Murphy +61 418 312 301 chairperson@ichrp.net