Press Release
February 4, 2024

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) is greatly encouraged by the 8-page Preliminary Observations of UN Special Rapporteur Ms Irene Khan, aimed at enhancing freedom of expression, democracy and human rights in the Philippines. ICHRP welcomes her specific calls for the abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and for President Marcos Jr to issue an Executive Order against red tagging.

ICHRP celebrates the Filipino peoples’ organisations and individuals who have relentlessly campaigned for the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC and have raised it to the attention of the international community and to Special Rapporteur Ms Khan. We reiterate the urgent need for the international community to support those who are bearing the brunt of repression under the NTF-ELCAC and Marcos Jr’s vicious counterinsurgency campaign.  

Ms Khan visited Manila, Baguio City, Cebu City and Tacloban over 10 days (January 23 – February 2), which enabled her to meet many officials and to hear Filipino people relate their experiences of censorship, surveillance, harassment and threats, and of extrajudicial killings. In Tacloban she met 25-year-old journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, in jail now for four years on absurd terrorism charges.

In summary, Ms Khan’s key recommendations are:

• Executive and Congress to expedite the passing of the Human Rights Defenders Bill
• President to issue an Executive Order to denounce red tagging with provisions to discipline officials who violate the order. Currently people have no effective recourse against red tagging denunciations.
• Abolish the NTF-ELCAC as one major driver of red tagging and to assist in the peace talks that are re-starting with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP)
• Create a dedicated well-resourced special prosecutor for crimes against journalists and human rights defenders, because the task force under Administrative Order 35 is clearly inadequate
• Create a well-resourced dedicated mechanism to protect media workers because the Presidential Task force on Media Security is clearly inadequate
• Make it simpler to establish media outlets so that journalists can do their work, and to discourage creation of media monopolies
• Support the Philippine Commission on Human Rights’ work to implement the Philippine Action Plan on the Safety of Journalists developed through UNESCO
• Decriminalize libel including cyberlibel
• Develop an effective Freedom of Information law
• Continue the work of the UN Joint Program on Human Rights capacity-building after it completes its mandate in 2024, in partnership with the United Nations
• Extend an open invitation to all UN Special Rapporteurs to visit the Philippines.

Finally, Ms Khan condemned the Anti-Terrorism Law provision for executive powers of arrest and surveillance without judicial warrant, and undertook to review the Rules of the Anti-Terrorism Act produced by the Supreme Court in December 2023.

Despite overwhelming evidence – verified by previous human rights reports including the Investigate PH and the 2023 findings of Special Rapporteur Ian Fry – which validate Ms Khan’s preliminary observations, the Philippine government attempted to rebut Ms Khan’s observations in their own press conference. Senior officials, including from NTF-ELCAC, argued against the abolition of that agency, denied that there was any policy of red tagging, conflated resistance to exploitation with terrorism, and claimed that the Philippine government was on the verge of complete victory over the New People’s Army. They foreshadowed the transition of NTF-ELCAC to an “NTF-Unity, Peace and Development”.

In this critical moment following the November 2023 Oslo Joint Communique between the Government and the NDFP, when peace talks hang in the balance, the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC is of utmost importance. The Philippine government’s counterinsurgency program has proven time and again that militarism and repression cannot resolve the roots of the armed conflict. To create the conditions for peace, and to develop genuine solutions to the pervasive landlessness, joblessness, and poverty, ICHRP urges the rapid implementation of Ms Khan’s recommendations, especially the abolition of the NTF-ELCAC. We call on people all over the world to write statements, hold education forums, lobby your respective governments, inform the international community on the impacts of the NTF-ELCAC, and to creatively and boldly support a just and lasting peace in the Philippines.  #

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

Press Release
January 30, 2024

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) welcomes the current visit of Special Rapporteur Ms Irene Khan to examine attacks of Freedom of Expression by the Marcos Jr. government. It is an important event in the opening up of the Philippines to international scrutiny following the ugly abuse directed at international institutions by the Philippine government.

ICHRP presented data to Ms Khan prior to her visit, showing that the Philippine state has brought its war on dissent and on any critical voice to Australia, Canada, the US, Hong Kong and elsewhere. It has attacked foreign nationals in the Philippines without cause, it has banned the entry of and red tagged foreign nationals. The Philippine government has conducted public attacks in the media on ICHRP, and sent agents of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) overseas to defame ICHRP and its members. It has conducted cyber warfare against ICHRP’s electronic infrastructure – all in an attempt to silence its Human Rights work.

On two occasions in August and September 2022, the state security apparatus red tagged foreign-based ICHRP staff members who visited Manila, using tarpaulins alleging that the individuals supported the Communist Party of the Philippines / New Peoples Army / National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP / NPA / NDFP).

NTF-ELCAC Spokesperson General Antonio Parlade visited Australia in February 2021 and publicly intimidated ICHRP member Honorary Professor Gill Boehringer as well as other individuals and a number of legal NGOs and political organizations in Australia at several public Filipino community meetings. In these meetings organized by the Philippine Consuls in Melbourne and Sydney and attended by Filipino- Australians, Parlade used a powerpoint to name Boehringer and others as agents of the CPP, claiming that he was a major figure in financing and developing support for “Communist Terrorist Groups”. (In fact, membership of the CPP was legalised by then-President Fidel Ramos way back in September 1992.)

ICHRP Canada Chairperson Rev. Dr. Patricia Lisson has been red-tagged by the Duterte-sponsored Sonshine Media Network Inc (SMNI) on a number of occasions. On September 19, 2023, the SMNI radio show Laban Kasama ang Bayan did a segment red tagging ICHRP-Canada. Their monologue focused on a response from NTF-ELCAC to ICHRP-Canada’s letter on the Anti-Terrorism Law.

There has been no accountability since Duterte unleashed his gruesome drug war and police-sanctioned vigilante killings in July 2016. Duterte fostered a climate of impunity for state-sponsored killings and the suppression of freedom of speech. Mechanisms such as the Anti-Terrorism Law, the NTF-ELCAC and the formal counter-insurgency program have institutionalized state terror in an ongoing war on dissent, including in the media. The state does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, putting unarmed citizens in the firing line, subjecting rural communities to aerial bombardment and shelling, and violating human rights through pervasive surveillance, judicial harassment, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.

Duterte’s climate of impunity for human rights violations has continued unabated under Marcos Jr., and all the machinery of repression developed under Duterte continues to operate, with substantial extra resources, under Marcos Jr. ICHRP as a human rights network has directly experienced ongoing attempts by the Philippine to bully and silence those who advocate for human rights and international humanitarian law through the NTF-ELCAC and other institutions of the state in its “whole-of-nation-approach”. The continued attempts to restrict Freedom of Expression in the Philippines is a concerning reality for all who address issues of economic, social, political and other human rights.

ICHRP joins its partners in the Philippines in condemning the ongoing suppression of freedom of speech and shrinking of civil society space for freedom of expression, both in the Philippines and globally, as the Philippines extends its war on dissent overseas.

We join other victims of the Philippine government in urgently calling for truth, justice, accountability and an end to the culture of impunity that has fostered state terror and shielded alleged criminals like Duterte, Marcos Jr. and their agents. We urge Special Rapporteur Khan to speak out against and formally report on the attacks on Freedom of Expression by the Marcos Jr. government, both in the Philippines and overseas. #

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

Press Release
January 4, 2024

“The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) strongly condemns the disproportionate use of weapons in an aerial bombardment by the 403rd Infantry Brigade, 4th Infantry Division of the AFP on December 25 until December 26, 2023, in Malaybalay City, Bukidnon, in Northern Mindanao. This demonstrates a brazen disrespect for human rights and international humanitarian law by the AFP,” said Peter Murphy, ICHRP Chairperson.

The bombings from drones, fighter jets, and firing of howitzers at a rebel camp and its surrounding area took place during a two-day unilateral ceasefire declared by the New People’s Army (NPA). Instead of reciprocating the ceasefire, the AFP launched military offensives, brazenly violating the rules of engagement. In the Bukidnon incident, the AFP used multiple 250-pound bombs and artillery rounds made by Israeli company Soltam Systems. 10 people were reportedly killed during the bombardment, and the explosions caused environmental destruction and terror in villages surrounding the area.

In an earlier incident, on December 17, 2023, the 59^th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army, augmented by Philippine Navy and Philippine Air Force troopers, killed two civilians and five NPA in an attack against an NPA encampment in Batangas, Southern Tagalog. Human rights workers documented the desecration of the bodies of the seven, including signs of rape. Relatives could hardly identify the bodies. The two civilians, Pretty Sheine Anacta, 19, and Rose Jane Agda, 30, were said to be visiting a relative in the NPA. 

Murphy continued, “Through its disproportionate use of force and terrorizing of local farmers during the military offensives, the AFP violated international humanitarian law (IHL) and showed blatant disregard for the well-being of the people. This violation of the rules of war is especially shocking given the recent indication of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) to resume peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which represents 18 revolutionary organizations including the NPA.”

These recent AFP offensives are part of a series of bombings and other attacks on alleged NPA members in civilian areas. As reported by human rights alliance Karapatan, over 22,000 people across the Philippines were affected by AFP bombings between July 2022 and November 2023. These violent bombardments and military action in the countryside are part of the GRP’s so-called “counter-insurgency” strategy, which  utilizes tactics including forced evacuation; hamleting and forcible reconcentration of civilian communities; forced “surrendering” of civilians; arbitrary arrest and enforced disappearances; torture; and extrajudicial killings.

“In the face of such brutality from the AFP in its war against the NPA, ICHRP reiterates its support to the Filipino people’s call for a genuine solution to the armed conflict by addressing the roots including widespread poverty, lack of jobs and industry, and the uneven distribution of land,” continued Murphy. “We have expressed support to the November 2023 joint statement of the GRP and NDFP indicating their desire to resume peace talks, providing a path towards just and lasting peace in the country.

“ICHRP calls on both parties to respect previous agreements such as the Hague Joint Declaration, the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), and the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), which guarantees the safety of peace negotiators, consultants, staff and all those who are involved in the peace negotiations.”

Further comment: Peter Murphy, ICHRP Chairperson, +61418312301, chairperson@ichrp.net